Red Sox’ Craig Breslow takes stock of job security, ‘aggressive’ trade interest, Chad Tracy’s status

BOSTON — A month after firing manager Alex Cora and a handful of key coaches, the Red Sox reached a new low-water mark Tuesday night when they fell to nine games under .500 for the first time all season.

At 22-31 and with a tough schedule ahead of them, the Red Sox have just a 23.4% chance of reaching the postseason, according to FanGraphs. As a once-promising season teeters, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has found himself under fire for an underperforming roster.

“It’s disappointing that we haven’t won nearly as many games as I thought we would,” Breslow said on Wednesday. “We can talk about why that is. Obviously, we haven’t scored runs. We haven’t hit the way I think we’re capable of and the way that we’re going to. In games we have scored some runs and had really good at-bats, unfortunately on the pitching side, we’ve let teams back in or given leads up. This is a results-driven game. You look up and see where we are in the standings and it’s not where we want to be.”

Breslow, who is in his third season at the helm after taking over for Chaim Bloom in the fall of 2023, declined to say if he had been given any assurances from ownership about his future. Asked if he is worried about his job security at this point, the chief executive said his attention remains on an in-season turnaround for the team.

“I worry about making sure I’m doing what I can to help the team,” Breslow said. “That is the truth, because the second you start thinking about other things, you’re not doing the best for its organization, its players or our fans.

“The conversations I have with ownership are about ideas for helping us turn the season around and any potential opportunities that exist. Ownership is incredibly engaged and aware of our performance, our players and guys in the minor leagues that might be able to help us. That’s the content of the conversations.”

The Red Sox, who entered play Wednesday ranking last in baseball in runs (200) and 29th in homers (41), are exploring all options when it comes to turning around their offense. With regulars like Caleb Durbin (.479 OPS), Marcelo Mayer (.570), Carlos Narváez (.628) and Jarren Duran (.634) struggling and Roman Anthony and Trevor Story both on the injured list, the Red Sox have given more opportunities to fill-ins like Mickey Gasper, Nick Sogard and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. At this point, Breslow said, the club has also not been shy about potentially adding offense via an early trade despite the August 3 trade deadline being more than two months away.

“We need to score more runs,” he said. “One way to do that is to get guys that are here to play up to what we think they can be. Another is to obviously look at guys outside the organization.

“We’ve been aggressive in terms of outreach and trying to identify players that we think can help us. Obviously, we’ve talked about the fact that the league is very compressed and there’s a bunch of teams — despite poor performance — who are still in it. The other side of that is that there are other teams in the league who have not played well that otherwise could think about moving players and are saying, ‘Hey, we’re not that far out of it.’"

To this point, Breslow said, the Red Sox have not considered an early-season sell-off in which they move key veterans like Aroldis Chapman, Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras and others in order to press the reset button and accelerate a rebuild.

“Right now, we’re focused on doing everything we can to turn our season around,” he said. “It’s a group I’ve got a lot of confidence in. I know we haven’t been playing up to what we’re capable of doing. That’s the focus.”

With few buttons available to push due to the lack of high-level reinforcements available at Triple-A, Breslow is hoping the team’s pitching staff (which ranks sixth in baseball in May with a 3.09 ERA) and defense (which leads MLB with 48 defensive runs saved) can serve as an anchor as some hitters get on track. The message to the lineup, Breslow said, is not about drastic improvement from previous years.

“A lot of guys are just not performing to their career norms,” Breslow said. “That’s not counting on guys to take steps forward. That’s just counting on guys to be the guys they’ve always been.”

The Red Sox are just 12-14 since handing the reins to interim manager Chad Tracy in the wake of Cora’s firing on April 26. On that day, Breslow declined to guarantee that Tracy would be the manager through the end of the 2026 season. A month later, he’s still not putting labels on Tracy’s status.

“I get asked that question a bunch,” he said. “Right now, and I’ve said it before, he’s the perfect guy to handle this transition. We’re impressed with what he’s doing and the conversations that we have are about what we can do to help players and what I can do to support him. I imagine that’ll continue to be the focus.

“It’s a very calming voice. He knows a bunch of these players so he has relationships with them, and he’s done a really good job of creating an environment around the players where they can be confident and they can be themselves.”

Despite not guaranteeing that Tracy will remain at the helm through the end of the season, Breslow said the Red Sox have not completed any interview for the permanent managerial position.

“At some point, we will explore that,” he said. “Right now, our focus is on how do we make the most out of our 2026 season?

“I still believe in the players that we have and I still believe our best baseball is in front of us.”

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