Craig Breslow understands Red Sox fans’ ‘frustration’ after trade deadline

It won’t make Red Sox fans feel any better, but chief baseball officer Craig Breslow can empathize with those who are upset about the team’s lack of win-now moves at Thursday’s trade deadline.

“I understand the frustration and disappointment,” Breslow told reporters shortly after the 6 p.m. deadline. “There’s not a lot of sympathy for how hard we tried to get deals across the line, I understand that.

“We believe that we have a really young, exciting, talented team, and one that is capable of continuing to perform at this level and make it to the postseason, and that’s what our focus is on.”

Red Sox fans had been hoping Breslow would make splashy moves to improve the team, which is stocked with young talent and in an American League wild-card spot at 59-51. 

But despite rumors that Boston was in the mix for top starting pitchers on the market — such as the Twins’ Joe Ryan and the Diamondbacks’ Merrill Kelly — the Red Sox only emerged with Cardinals reliever Steven Matz and Dodgers starter Dustin May. 

Matz, a 34-year-old who spent his first six MLB seasons as a starter on the Mets, sports a 3.44 ERA out of the bullpen with St. Louis this season. 

May is a 6-foot-6 righty who has posted a 4.85 ERA in 18 starts with Los Angeles this year.

Many Red Sox fans came out of the deadline with those two acquisitions feeling like consolation prizes, given the team’s interest in bigger and more accomplished names. 

Despite the team trading star slugger Rafael Devers to the Giants in June, pressure mounted for Boston to improve its roster at the deadline after the team rattled off a 10-game winning streak leading into the All-Star break, with young stars such as Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer offering key contributions.

Breslow said the Red Sox were directly focused on providing reinforcements to this year’s team, but that deals just didn’t align in time.

“There’s decisions that were made at this deadline, they weren’t driven by an unwillingness to be aggressive. They weren’t driven by taking a highlighted or reinforced view of 2026 or 2027,” Breslow said. “We were aggressively pursuing acquisitions that could help us in 2025. They didn’t line up.”