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Craig Breslow says Red Sox have new ‘identity’ and ‘strength’ — and Ranger Suárez is a big reason why
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- Craig Breslow says Red Sox have new ‘identity’ and ‘strength’ — and Ranger Suárez is a big reason why
BOSTON — Historically, the best Red Sox 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.
On the four Red Sox championship teams since the turn of the century, only one starting rotation — the 2007 group, which finished fourth — 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’s dominance at the front of the group , finished 12th in baseball in rotation ERA.
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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 Suárez and Sonny Gray flanking Brayan Bello , who just two seasons ago was Boston’s 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.
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’s best rotations in 2026. That was a possibility even before the club lost out on Alex Bregman and pivoted to Suárez, whose five-year, $130 million contract became official Wednesday . But the addition of the former Phillie raised both the floor and the ceiling of Boston’s starting group to a level it hasn’t reached in decades.
“I don’t think there’s 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,” Breslow said Wednesday.
“I think the improvements we made on the pitching side are significant,” he added. “It 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’re playing on any given day, we’re going to feel like we’ve got a chance to win.”
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Any suggestion that Suárez was Plan A for the Red Sox in the high-end free agent pool represents revisionist history. It’s no secret, despite efforts from Breslow and agent Scott Boras to say otherwise Wednesday, that things really only got serious between the Sox and Suárez once another Boras client, Alex Bregman , decided to head to the Cubs. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Red Sox didn’t view Suárez as a really intriguing — albeit outside-the-box — pivot. That’s why the groundwork for a potential pursuit was laid all the way back in November, long before Bregman’s plans became clear.
Was Suárez a consolation prize after Bregman’s departure? Sure, even if Boras spoke poetically about Boston’s dual pursuits of both players Wednesday . Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. There’s no doubting Suárez raises the potential of the club, both in 2026 and beyond, quite significantly. And it’s why club decision-makers weren’t shy about the fact he sat atop their pitching wish list at the outset of hot stove season.
“From very early on, we felt like as it related to free agent starting pitchers, Ranger was the guy we wanted to target,” Breslow said. “Really 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.
“You 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’s got every chance to be as good a pitcher for the next five years as he has been for the previous five.”
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Boston’s 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 . But another major reason the Red Sox lost that series — and why they weren’t primed for a long postseason run — was the lack of trustworthy rotation options behind Crochet. Yes, Giolito’s arm injury came at the worst possible time. But the club’s unwillingness to trust a shaky Bello for more than 28 pitches in Game 2 (his postseason debut) spoke volumes about the roster’s needs moving forward.
In Gray, who at 36 has five postseason starts under his belt, and Suárez, who owns a dominant 1.48 ERA over 42 ⅔ 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’s no small thing.
“What really stands out is the body of work in the postseason,” Breslow said. “When his teams needed him the most, he was at his best. We look forward to Ranger continuing to build that postseason resumé here over the next five years.”
The Red Sox, after losing out on Bregman and trading for first baseman Willson Contreras , very clearly aren’t done on the position player side of things and are actively pursuing trade options at both second and third base . 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.
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“We’ll continue to look at ways to improve the team,” Breslow said. “If that means potentially talking about trading from an area of depth in order to address another roster need, it’s going to be something we’ll be willing to hear out.”
As Breslow has learned over the past two winters, the path to offseason improvement isn’t always linear. This year’s has just happened to take Boston to the mound, over and over again.
“We work backwards from, ‘We need to put a better team on the field and win more games than we did last year. How do we do that?’ Offense was a fairly obvious one, but preventing runs is another way,” Breslow said. “I joked with (hitting coach) Pete (Fatse) that hopefully we’re making his job easier, too, by not putting such demands on the offense.
“If 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.”
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