Former Boston Red Sox Starter Shines with New Team
The Boston Red Sox entered the 2026 season with not only one of the best pitching staffs in baseball but also one of the deepest. Boston felt so comfortable with their pitching depth that they were willing to deal the centerpiece of June's Rafael Devers trade, Kyle Harrison , to bolster their lineup. Now, just 32 games into the season, the Red Sox have exhausted nearly their entire major league pitching depth, while Harrison stars for Milwaukee .
When Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow met with the media after the deal, he clearly had high hopes for Harrison: "Kyle Harrison is someone we think can pitch in the front half of the rotation, we’ve identified some development opportunities for him that we’re going to work through," Breslow said of the then-23-year-old lefty.
Breslow's assessment of Harrison never came to fruition in Boston. He spent much of the year with Triple-A Worcester, making 12 starts for the WooSox, posting a 3.75 ERA across 50.2 innings. He made just three appearances, two starts for Boston, producing mediocre results. Harrison appeared in 12 innings across those three appearances, allowing four earned runs on 14 hits. What was most alarming about Harrison's performance in the big leagues was the amount of hard contact he allowed, with an average exit velocity of 90.7 mph and a hard-hit rate of 42.7%.
Breslow and Bailey were clearly unimpressed with what they saw from Harrison, adding Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez in the offseason, further burying the key piece in the return for Devers, eventually sending him to Milwaukee in the deal that sent third baseman Caleb Durbin to Boston .
Durbin has struggled mightily out of the gate for the Red Sox, while Milwaukee, which is regarded as one of the best development organizations in all of baseball, did exactly what they are known for and turned Harrison into the front-line starter that Breslow initially envisioned him as.
Through six starts with the Brewers, Harrison has allowed just seven runs on 24 hits across 29.2 innings pitched; his 2.12 ERA ranks 12th lowest in baseball among starters with at least 20 innings of work.
ESPN's Paul Hembekides joined Buster Olney to discuss some of the changes Milwaukee made to unlock Harrison, including a change in arm slot, pitch usage, and change-up grip. Changes that are "The difference between an organization pitching philosophy, which they have in Milwaukee, and an organization homogeneity, which they have with the Red Sox," according to Hembekides.
Hembekides is correct in his evaluation of the Red Sox "pitching lab"; Breslow and Bailey target a very specific kind of pitcher to build upon, guys who are both tall and large, with elite extension, much like Payton Tolle . While struggling to unlock that next level in pitchers that do not have that very specific set of traits.
Harrison becomes the latest former Red Sox starter that Milwaukee has been able to elevate, after a 2025 trade that sent starter Quinn Priester to Milwaukee in exchange for prospect Yophery Rodriguez, John Holobetz, and a Competitive Balance Pick used on Marcus Phillips.
After being dealt to the Brewers, Priester posted a career high 157.1 innings pitched with a career low 3.12 ERA, finally becoming the player that made him one of the top pitching prospects in baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates .
The conversation surrounding Harrison and Priester's success with Milwaukee gets especially interesting in the wake of Boston's firing of manager Alex Cora and six members of his coaching staff , all on the hitting side. CBS Sports' Julian McWilliams reported that part of the reasoning behind the coaching staff purge was the lack of player developmen t at the major league level, with one source telling McWilliams, "Why do a lot of players go to other places and get better?"
There are almost zero examples of hitters leaving Boston and instantly improving during Breslow's tenure as Chief Baseball Officer, yet there are now two glaring examples of pitchers being dealt away and immediately unlocking a new level. All the while, Boston's pitching infrastructure remained completely unscathed in the firings.
The Red Sox fell to the Astros on Saturday afternoon, 6-3, and now sit at 13-20 and in last place in the American League East. They will look to take the series from Houston on Sunday afternoon. Ranger Suarez will get the start for Boston opposite Cody Bolton for Houston. First pitch from Fenway Park set for 1:35 p.m. ET.
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