{"id":136470,"date":"2025-06-28T05:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T05:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/136470\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T05:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T05:12:09","slug":"red-sox-evaluating-rotation-first-base-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/136470\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Evaluating Rotation, First Base Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox\u2019s miserable week continued tonight, as they dropped the first game of their weekend set against the Blue Jays by a 9-0 score. The Sox have lost seven of 10 since trading Rafael Devers<\/a> and are riding a six-game losing streak \u2014 tied with Kansas City for the longest active mark in MLB. They\u2019ve fallen three games below .500 at 40-43.<\/p>\n

Poorly as they\u2019ve played of late, the Sox are only three games out of a playoff spot. They\u2019re one of six teams within five games of the Mariners, who currently hold the final Wild Card position. The muddled American League leaves every team aside from the White Sox and A\u2019s with at least some hope of getting hot and playing their way out of selling at the deadline. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow maintained immediately after the Devers trade that the front office still expected to operate as buyers. He took a similar approach this evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve talked a lot about looking to the future, (but) at some point, the future has to be now,\u201d Breslow told Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic<\/a>. \u201cWe went into 2025 expecting to compete for the division and expecting to make it to the playoffs. We haven\u2019t played as well as we\u2019re capable of, but that goal still exists, and we\u2019re not so far away that we should be thinking about 2026 or 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breslow added that the front office is focused on \u201c(identifying) the needs that we have\u201d over the next month. Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> reported that Boston was in the market for both a first baseman and rotation help. Neither is surprising. Their first base plans have been up in the air since\u00a0Triston Casas<\/a> sustained a season-ending knee injury.\u00a0Kristian Campbell<\/a> has begun playing there in Triple-A, but it\u2019s an unfamiliar position and he hadn\u2019t hit for two months before he was optioned. Journeyman\u00a0Abraham Toro<\/a> is holding the role for now. He\u2019s hitting .278\/.307\/.459 with five homers across 140 trips to the plate while posting below-average defensive grades.<\/p>\n

The rotation has been an issue outside of Garrett Crochet\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0starts.\u00a0Brayan Bello<\/a> has managed a decent ERA despite a poor strikeout\/walk profile, which continued tonight. Every other Sox starter has posted an earned run average of 4.21 or higher.\u00a0Richard Fitts<\/a> has an ERA pushing 5.00, while\u00a0Lucas Giolito<\/a> has yet to post a sub-4.00 mark in any month. Signing Walker Buehler<\/a> to a one-year, $21.05MM free agent deal has proven a major misstep. Opponents have teed off on the longtime Dodger for a 6.29 ERA across 13 starts. Buehler has allowed five or more runs in four of his past five appearances.<\/p>\n

Kyle Harrison<\/a> has begun his organizational tenure on optional assignment in Triple-A. Kutter Crawford<\/a> probably won\u2019t be back this season. Hunter Dobbins<\/a> recently went down with an elbow strain.\u00a0Tanner Houck<\/a> had an ERA north of 8.00 over nine starts before landing on the injured list with a flexor pronator strain. He began a rehab assignment at Triple-A Worcester last week. Houck didn\u2019t complete two innings in either of his first two minor league starts. He gave up a combined five runs on as many hits and four free passes (three walks and a hit batter) while recording just two strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The Sox announced today that Houck\u2019s next rehab appearance will come out of the bullpen following an opener. Breslow told WEEI\u2019s Rob Bradford<\/a> that the decision doesn\u2019t signify a long-term role change, saying they\u2019re simply hoping to \u201c(change) the situation a little bit, (change) his mentality a little bit.\u201d Regardless, it has hardly been an encouraging start to the righty\u2019s rehab work and only increases the urgency to add to the rotation as long as they still feel they\u2019re viable contenders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox\u2019s miserable week continued tonight, as they dropped the first game of their weekend set against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,2543,4913],"class_list":{"0":"post-136470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-red-sox","14":"tag-redsox","15":"tag-tanner-houck"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114759279925212407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}