BOSTON — The Red Sox began exploring the trade market before the MLB trade deadline officially passes by first acquiring left-handed pitcher James Paxton from the Dodgers, which might not be the only trigger pulled by the front office.
“I think we’re going to continue to look for opportunities to get better. If those take the shape of a starting pitcher, we’re definitely open to it,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told reporters Friday, per MLB.com’s Ian Browne. “But we felt like we didn’t want to walk out of the deadline without having added a starting pitcher. So I’m glad that we have done that, especially at this point, but we’ll continue to look.”
Despite the emergence of Tanner Houck and the reliability of Kutter Crawford, continuously looking to improve the pitching staff could heavily benefit the Red Sox, especially before the regular season begins to wind down. Boston’s already endured the season-ending absences of Lucas Giolito and Garrett Whitlock — both to right elbow ulnar collateral ligament injuries — which are just the start of the franchise’s injury woes. Infielders Triston Casas, Trevor Story and newcomer Vaughn Grissom, who were all expected to be critical pieces of the roster, have missed the majority of this season with their respective injuries. It’s once again positioned manager Alex Cora to get creative with the young crew, but in the process, Boston still isn’t to be counted out yet of a postseason run. The team is just 6 1/2 games back of the American League East lead entering Friday night’s series opener with the Yankees and 4 1/2 games behind New York, which stands in second place.
Working around the several key absences of the team’s 2024 roster leaves the front office considering other areas to supplement the organization’s vision for this season, which could prompt Breslow to land either a right-handed bat or relief arm — or possibly both.
“I mean, ultimately we would like to walk out of Tuesday’s deadline having added in both of those places,” Breslow said, per Browne. “So many of these things require lining up across a bunch of things. We have guys that I think are very capable on the team right now. We also have a strong system that enables us to operate from areas of surplus.”
Having begun the post-All-Star break half of the season with a disappointing 1-5 road trip, the Red Sox, too, will need to pitch in. Boston entered the Midsummer Classic intermission with the third and final wild-card spot in hand before losing it to the Royals. There’s still time on the clock to make some calls and pull off another swap or two before Tuesday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline officially passes.
