There’s snow on the ground in Berkshire County. As I write this, the temperature is a balmy 12 degrees. That must mean it’s baseball season.

It isn’t yet Christmas, and the Red Sox are making, what I think, are moves that could vault them past the Wild Card round of the 2026 playoffs.

Home runs might be fun and, in many MLB parks, fireworks worthy. But if you want to win the Commissioner’s Trophy and have a duck boat parade, you need pitching.

Nobody knows that more than Craig Breslow, the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer, himself a former big league pitcher. What Breslow has done in the last 10 days should make a Red Sox fan smile.

In a pair of trades for prospects and some organizational flotsam, all Breslow did was — at worst — reinforce the back end of manager Alex Cora’s rotation.

The trade Thursday for Pittsburgh starter Johan Oviedo might be the one that has members of Red Sox nation a little concerned. After all, if you aren’t Roman Anthony, probably the most popular Red Sox prospect Jhostynxon Garcia — the outfielder known as “Password” — went back to the Steel City in the trade.

As the billion-dollar Dodgers demonstrated by winning the 2025 World Series, you can never have too much pitching, and certainly you can never have too much quality pitching.

Sometimes, you have to give to get. Garcia might hit 50 home runs for the Pirates and lead that lost franchise back to respectability. But none of that matters if Oviedo locks down the No. 3 or 4 spot in the rotation and the Red Sox are playing meaningful baseball in October.

It was the acquisition of Sonny Gray right before the holiday that had Red Sox fans giving Thanks.

But first, Gray was asked about waiving his no-trade to come to Boston and a big market. That was especially after he had been excited to be traded to the Yankees back in 2017, a year-plus tenure that ended badly.

“That’s a fair question. I appreciate the question because I will get that question a decent amount,” Gray said on a Zoom call with me and other reporters. “New York just wasn’t a good situation for me. It wasn’t a great setup for me and my family. I never wanted to go there in the first place.”

That’s not what Gray said back then.

“I was gonna be a Yankee,” he said back in 2017. “I just had a big smile on my face and was ready to get here.”

In one-plus years, Gray was 15-16 with a 4.51 earned-run average in New York, so I’m sure Gray had one idea when the trade was made and another when he was traded in 2019 from New York to Cincinnati.

“It just didn’t really work for kind of who I am,” Gray said. “But I do appreciate my time there because without that, when did I leave there, in [2019]? So I had seven years. I’ve been a better baseball player, husband, everything from having had that experience.

“I just feel like I learned so much after going through that. I just wasn’t myself, and I don’t know what led to that, but I just didn’t feel like I was allowed to go out there and just be Sonny.”

For his part, Breslow said he’s thrilled to get Sonny Gray to Jersey Street.

“When you think about what Sonny has been in this league. He’s been a guy that’s pitched in the front of rotations,” Breslow said. “Those things we think pitchers carry from year to year, things like strikeout rates and walk rates and ability to stay off barrels, he really excels there.

“We’re really excited about adding a guy that’s coming off back-to-back 200 strikeout seasons.”

So, if you are a Red Sox fan, you hope that Sonny can just be Sonny. The veteran right-hander, who is heading into his 14th season, said he’s ready for the challenge of pitching for the Red Sox and at Fenway Park.

“I am who I am, but I definitely think there’s room for improvement,” he said. “If you look at the last couple of years, the ERA is inflated a little bit, directly correlated to damage. Walks down, strikeouts up, damage, homers. Homers are a direct correlation to runs. There’s a way to getting back to limiting damage.

“Walks may go up a little bit with it, but that will be okay.”

Red Sox fans will be happy about one thing: Sonny Gray wants to hoist that World Series trophy with the Red Sox.

“It’s pretty much one of the only things that is continuing to push me and to continue to be better in the game is to get to a World Series, to win a World Series, to pitch in big games,” Gray said. “I love the moment and I’m chasing that moment.”

The Red Sox might not be finished chasing arms and bats to have those moments for guys like Sonny Gray. But if they are done acquiring pitching, they are still ahead of their American League East competitors.