{"id":532040,"date":"2026-01-22T03:48:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T03:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/532040\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T03:48:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T03:48:28","slug":"craig-breslow-says-red-sox-have-new-identity-and-strength-and-ranger-suarez-is-a-big-reason-why-chris-cotillo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/532040\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Breslow says Red Sox have new \u2018identity\u2019 and \u2018strength\u2019 \u2014\u00a0and Ranger Su\u00e1rez is a big reason why | Chris Cotillo"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2014 Historically, the best Red Sox<\/a> teams have slugged their way to relevance and titles. Playing 81 games at hitter-friendly Fenway Park lends itself to dominating offensively and hoping to outslug teams enough to win plenty of games.<\/p>\n

On the four Red Sox championship teams since the turn of the century, only one starting rotation \u2014 the 2007 group, which finished fourth \u2014 boasted an ERA that ranked among the top seven in baseball. In fact, the Red Sox have not had a top-five rotation in baseball, in terms of ERA, since that season, 19 years ago. The 2025 Red Sox, even with Garrett Crochet\u2019s dominance at the front of the group<\/a>, finished 12th in baseball in rotation ERA.<\/p>\n

Craig Breslow thinks Boston will have a chance to buck that trend in 2026 after an aggressive rotation overhaul since the end of the season. Behind Crochet, the Sox have two proven veterans with top-of-the-rotation potential in Ranger Su\u00e1rez and Sonny Gray flanking Brayan Bello, who just two seasons ago was Boston\u2019s Opening Day starter. Johan Oviedo, Kutter Crawford, Patrick Sandoval, Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, Kyle Harrison and others provide a level of depth that would make every team in baseball envious.<\/p>\n

A Red Sox team that spent much of 2024 cobbling together its rotation and the end of 2025 scrambling to fill innings behind Crochet, Bello and Lucas Giolito now has a real chance at boasting one of baseball\u2019s best rotations in 2026. That was a possibility even before the club lost out on Alex Bregman and pivoted to Su\u00e1rez, whose five-year, $130 million contract became official Wednesday<\/a>. But the addition of the former Phillie raised both the floor and the ceiling of Boston\u2019s starting group to a level it hasn\u2019t reached in decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a question anymore that the identity of our team and the strength of our team is going to be our pitching and our ability to prevent runs,\u201d Breslow said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the improvements we made on the pitching side are significant,\u201d he added. \u201cIt can be difficult at times to fully appreciate the impact of having dominant starting pitching. But going into a game feeling like we can just play our game offensively and on the bases because our pitching is going to keep us in the game is such a huge advantage for the team. I think no matter who we\u2019re playing on any given day, we\u2019re going to feel like we\u2019ve got a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Any suggestion that Su\u00e1rez was Plan A for the Red Sox in the high-end free agent pool represents revisionist history. It\u2019s no secret, despite efforts from Breslow and agent Scott Boras to say otherwise Wednesday, that things really only got serious between the Sox and Su\u00e1rez once another Boras client, Alex Bregman, decided to head to the Cubs. That doesn\u2019t mean, however, that the Red Sox didn\u2019t view Su\u00e1rez as a really intriguing \u2014 albeit outside-the-box \u2014 pivot. That\u2019s why the groundwork for a potential pursuit was laid all the way back in November, long before Bregman\u2019s plans became clear.<\/p>\n

Was Su\u00e1rez a consolation prize after Bregman\u2019s departure? Sure, even if Boras spoke poetically about Boston\u2019s dual pursuits of both players Wednesday<\/a>. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. There\u2019s no doubting Su\u00e1rez raises the potential of the club, both in 2026 and beyond, quite significantly. And it\u2019s why club decision-makers weren\u2019t shy about the fact he sat atop their pitching wish list at the outset of hot stove season.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom very early on, we felt like as it related to free agent starting pitchers, Ranger was the guy we wanted to target,\u201d Breslow said. \u201cReally liked what he had accomplished and felt like he would be a great fit, both for our park and our pitching style with the job our pitching group does. And also the way he would slot into the rotation. We talked about trying to create the most formidable rotation we possibly could entering a potential postseason. We feel like Ranger fits right in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start with the track record of success, and particularly success in a really tough division and in a park that is a pretty offensive-friendly environment. Then, the ability to consistently manage contact. You think about the way that translates to our park and our division and view that quite favorably. We feel like he\u2019s got every chance to be as good a pitcher for the next five years as he has been for the previous five.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boston\u2019s lineup, with Roman Anthony out and Rafael Devers long gone, went quiet in the Wild Card Series against the Yankees, especially in a listless Game 3 effort against Cam Schlittler<\/a>. But another major reason the Red Sox lost that series \u2014 and why they weren\u2019t primed for a long postseason run \u2014 was the lack of trustworthy rotation options behind Crochet. Yes, Giolito\u2019s arm injury came at the worst possible time. But the club\u2019s unwillingness to trust a shaky Bello for more than 28 pitches in Game 2 (his postseason debut) spoke volumes about the roster\u2019s needs moving forward.<\/p>\n

In Gray, who at 36 has five postseason starts under his belt, and Su\u00e1rez, who owns a dominant 1.48 ERA over 42 \u2154 playoff innings spread across four postseasons, the Red Sox have arms they can trust in October. For a team expecting to reach that stage, that\u2019s no small thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat really stands out is the body of work in the postseason,\u201d Breslow said. \u201cWhen his teams needed him the most, he was at his best. We look forward to Ranger continuing to build that postseason resum\u00e9 here over the next five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Red Sox, after losing out on Bregman and trading for first baseman Willson Contreras, very clearly aren\u2019t done on the position player side of things and are actively pursuing trade options at both second and third base<\/a>. To get something done, the club is willing to talk about dealing from its pool of starters, even after moving Richard Fitts (in the Gray trade) and Hunter Dobbins (in the Contreras deal) earlier this winter. Tolle and Early would be hard to move but could go in return for a star player. Crawford or Sandoval could intrigue clubs as buy-low candidates with experience. Bello, more than ever, seems like a sneaky trade candidate after everything the Red Sox have done to insulate him in the rotation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to look at ways to improve the team,\u201d Breslow said. \u201cIf that means potentially talking about trading from an area of depth in order to address another roster need, it\u2019s going to be something we\u2019ll be willing to hear out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Breslow has learned over the past two winters, the path to offseason improvement isn\u2019t always linear. This year\u2019s has just happened to take Boston to the mound, over and over again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work backwards from, \u2018We need to put a better team on the field and win more games than we did last year. How do we do that?\u2019 Offense was a fairly obvious one, but preventing runs is another way,\u201d Breslow said. \u201cI joked with (hitting coach) Pete (Fatse) that hopefully we\u2019re making his job easier, too, by not putting such demands on the offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think back to the outset of the offseason, we talked a lot about building a roster that we thought was capable of competing for the World Series in 2026 and beyond. Bringing in a player with the talent and accomplishments of Ranger positions us, we believe, to do just that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 Historically, the best Red Sox teams have slugged their way to relevance and titles. Playing 81…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[152,5,141,48,2542,4,10457,7931,89,2543],"class_list":["post-532040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-red-sox","tag-american-league","tag-baseball","tag-boston","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bostonredsox","tag-mlb","tag-press","tag-ranger","tag-red-sox","tag-redsox"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115936710112813867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532040","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=532040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}