The Boston Red Sox have been plagued with issues all around their roster early in the season, from rough starting pitching to an exhausted bullpen to borderline unwatchable offensive showings. Media and kind fans have said the players just need more time to find themselves, but as the end of April approaches, little has changed for the floundering Red Sox.
Fans and media can't put a finger on the true source of Boston's issues because they're so widespread — very few Sox players have truly done their jobs to this point. Part of the trouble could truly be a slow start, or coaching failures, or poor roster construction, or some combination of all three.
Boston's glaring offensive struggles certainly have every possible alarm bell sounding, but the pitching problems also need fixing. After the Red Sox lost out on Alex Bregman over the offseason, they pivoted to building the team on run prevention. The pitching has done nothing of the sort — very rarely have Red Sox starters made it through the sixth inning due to high pitch counts and failures to limit damage.
Given the high expectations around the Red Sox after they returned to the playoffs in 2025, their atrocious start could put Craig Breslow in the hot seat sooner rather than later. Chris Curtis of WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show" thinks Breslow could be out as chief baseball officer by September
Red Sox CBO Craig Breslow attests run prevention method was a team effort amid Boston's struggles
Red Sox fall to NYY again. Wiggy wanted a sweep, but it could be NYY that win 3. Curtis: "I believe firmly, Craig Breslow will not be here in September." "I don't blame him entirely" Do you agree that Red Sox CBO Breslow may be on 'hot seat', if struggles continue? #RedSox #MLB pic.twitter.com/7BCginQuG5
— WEEI (@WEEI) April 23, 2026
"I don't blame him entirely," Curtis was sure to clarify. "But I do remember talking to him in Fort Myers at spring training and I told him that everybody around the team was basically saying this was an offseason of Breslow trying to do run prevention, and he immediately fought back against that, saying it was a collaborative approach."
The Red Sox have had rough luck so far with their new pitching additions. Ranger Suárez has been inconsistent in his first few outings, sometimes looking untouchable, sometimes getting knocked around quite a bit. Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo are on the injured list. Even Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello are having trouble.
It's interesting to hear that Breslow reacted so strongly to the notion that he was the main brain behind the run prevention idea. It would make sense for him to come up with such a plan given the scale of the improvements he's made to the team's pitching infrastructure over his tenure as CBO, but his insistence that other people were on board leaves room to wonder. Reports that Breslow isn't a popular man in the Sox's front office have circulated before, so people may just be throwing him under the bus, or the relationship could compel them to be brutally honest.
If the run prevention idea was working, Breslow would be in a much safer spot. After the Red Sox whiffed on Bregman, it was clear this year's team would be no offensive powerhouse. But Breslow passed on multiple talented hitters — Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso, Ketel Marte, Isaac Paredes, Eugenio Suárez, they essentially passed on Bregman by failing to meet his incredibly reasonable demands — and now nothing is going right.
Regardless, if the Red Sox don't turn things around on all sides of the ball quickly, Breslow's CBO job could be in danger. His two most recent predecessors didn't make it to four years in the position and Breslow may be approaching the same fate, whether Boston's roster construction issues are entirely his fault or not.
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