BOSTON — From the outside, it looks like the Red Sox might be facing a bit of an uncomfortable situation when it comes to Lucas Giolito’s workload down the stretch. A unique clause in Giolito’s contract effectively allows Boston to control him for 2026 if he pitches fewer than 140 innings in 2025. The Red Sox, then, would be incentivized to make sure Giolito doesn’t hit that mark over the final six weeks of the season.
In the heat of a pennant race, though, that’s not how chief baseball officer Craig Breslow looks at things. No matter which side of 140-inning mark Giolito lands, Breslow said, it won’t be determined by anything other than the Red Sox prioritizing wins over the final few weeks.
“I actually think it’s pretty simple,” Breslow said Saturday. “All of the decisions that we’re going to make are going to be driven by what gives us the best chance of winning games, getting into the postseason and making a deep postseason run.
“There are a handful of times when you think about the contract. One is when you give it out. Another when he got hurt two springs ago. Since then, it’s just the kind of thing where he’s going out and pitching deep into games. That’s good. Ultimately, we want to give ourselves the best chance we can of winning games. That’s the only thing on the mind right now.”
When Giolito signed his two-year, $38.5 million contract with the Red Sox shortly before New Year’s Day in 2024, the deal included a provision meant to protect the Red Sox if he were to have a serious injury like the season-ending elbow surgery he underwent last spring. If Giolito didn’t opt out after 2024 — an obvious call last winter after he missed 2024 — the Red Sox held a conditional option over him for 2026. Were Giolito to throw fewer than 140 innings in 2025, the Red Sox would hold an affordable $14 million club option (or $1.5 million buyout) over him for 2026. If he does hit that mark, it would become a $19 million mutual option (or $1.5 million buyout) that would be declined, making him a free agent.
The result remains in the balance. With his 6⅓ inning performance against Miami on Friday night, Giolito — despite missing the first month of the season due to a hamstring strain suffered in spring training — is at 106⅔ innings and is just 33 ⅓ frames short of 140. His next start, projected for Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, will come with 35 games — or seven rotation turns, depending on how the Sox manipulate four September off days — left in the regular season. Five innings per start would get Giolito over the hump.
The Red Sox technically have the power to reduce Giolito’s workload, keep him under the 140-inning mark and then have a $14 million option over him for next year. But Breslow vowed that the club won’t do that to a player who has cemented himself as a rotation fixture with an 8-2 record and 3.63 ERA in 19 starts.
“You hope that these situations are clear,” Breslow said. “When you’re pushing for a playoff spot, they are. We’re all incentivized to do whatever we can to win games. The most important thing after that is actually just making sure he’s healthy and recovering and that we’re monitoring the workload so that he’s in a position to help us every five days.”
Giolito has repeatedly brushed off questions about the option, saying that the situation will take care of itself either way. Manager Alex Cora claimed he didn’t know much about the contract details when asked Friday. But everyone involved knows that the specifics could lead to a rather sticky situation if Giolito is hovering around 140 innings in late September.
Should Giolito hit the open market, he’d likely be in line for a nice, multi-year pay-day after a bounceback season at age 31. There’s a chance Giolito and the Red Sox could talk about an extension that void the conditional option in the coming weeks, but even if not, there’s clear mutual interest in extending the relationship beyond this fall.
“We try to keep the focus on the field right now but it’s impossible to ignore the way he has stabilized the rotation behind Garrett (Crochet),” Breslow said. “He and (Brayan) Bello have done a great job there. This is a place that he has been very outspoken about in terms of how comfortable he feels here and how magical Fenway has been. He has helped us win a ton of games. He has been a great addition to the group. When the time comes, we’ll have those conversations.”
The beginning of Giolito’s Red Sox tenure was a disaster, with the elbow surgery and hamstring setback delaying his team debut by a year and a month. He then struggled to a 7.08 ERA in his first four starts. In the 15 outings since, though, the former first-rounder has been a major bright spot for Boston, logging a 2.81 ERA in 86 ⅓ innings with the Red Sox winning 11 of those starts.
“It has been awesome for us,” said Breslow. “Not just what he’s doing every five days, but the impact he has had on the rest of the guys. You can see how much competing means to him. He’s taken on a leadership role alongside Garrett in the staff. He has talked a lot about how special this place is to him in a short amount of time.
“We weren’t quite sure what we were going to get coming into this season. Recovering from the elbow surgery, then he had the hamstring thing and the rehab outings in the minor leagues were inconsistent. A couple inconsistent ones out of the gates after Toronto, where he was really good. But over the last two months, he has been as good of a pitcher as there has been in baseball.”
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