With every discussion about the Boston Red Sox focused on their dysfunctional front office and soulless ownership group, it's easy to gloss over the fact that the baseball team itself has pressing issues that need immediate fixing. These are front office problems, yes, but not of the variety that can be swept under the rug via scapegoat tactics.
Take Boston's bullpen, for instance. It's been more or less a mess outside of the established and trustworthy late-inning duo of Aroldis Chapman and Garrett Whitlock.
The Red Sox might really have something with Tyler Samaniego (zero earned runs through 8.1 innings), but beyond him, Boston's 2026 'pen has lacked the requisite amount of reliable connectors between the starting rotation and Whitlock/Chapman. Greg Weissert has been blowing leads and making Red Sox fans sick, proving his World Baseball Classic heroics were a fluke. Ryan Watson has been really bad, with a 6.62 ERA to prove it, and Danny Coulombe's 6.14 ERA is nearly as ugly.
Red Sox could be benefiting from Brennan Bernardino's excellence right now (but they traded him)
It sure would be nice to have Brennan Bernardino to eat up some innings! Bernardino, who was traded by the Red Sox to the Colorado Rockies in November, has been excelling this season. The 34-year-old lefty is 2-0 with an 0.71 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, and 11 strikeouts in 12.2 innings of work.
You have been picked off by Brennan Bernardino. pic.twitter.com/BHUBZDdp3U
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) April 19, 2026
Bernardino has a lower ERA than all Red Sox relievers — other than Samaniego — who have pitched at least 3 2/3 innings this year, including Chapman and his 1.04 ERA through 8 2/3.
Due to all of the uncertainty and lack of performance in Boston's bullpen, ex-manager Alex Cora had been routinely cycling through the Red Sox's relievers on an almost inning-by-inning basis in a revolving door game of "Who's not going to be terrible tonight?". The tactic, though forgivable, naturally led to general fatigue across the entire bullpen, leading to an endless cycle of mediocrity (or worse) in that area for Boston.
Was Brennan Bernardino just another "Cora guy" expelled from Boston?
Cora was likely annoyed that the front office traded Bernardino, who was a favorite in 2025 as a long reliever. Any Red Sox fan will tell you that it seemed like Cora used Bernardino pretty much every day in relief last season.
If Bernardino keeps looking like Mariano Rivera with the Rockies, he'll end up being added to the list of ex-Red Sox pitchers who have become the best version of themselves elsewhere (Kyle Harrison and Quinn Priester are two Milwaukee Brewers pitchers on this list).
Of course, with Breslow's go-to move being to stockpile pitching talent for trade purposes, the Red Sox are bound to watch many of their ex-arms go on to find success elsewhere. That's not necessarily an indictment against Breslow; it actually shows that he knows how to identify good young pitching. But it's also important to know who to trade, and when to trade — or not trade — certain players. Given the state of Boston's bullpen, trading Bernardino might've been another Breslow mistake.
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