{"id":730507,"date":"2026-06-11T22:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/730507\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:02:17","slug":"sam-kennedy-talks-red-soxs-embarrassing-play-breslows-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/730507\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Kennedy talks Red Sox’s ’embarrassing\u2019 play, Breslow’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston Red Sox\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t“There\u2019s no way to sugarcoat it. It\u2019s been awful.”<\/p>\n

\"Boston
\n\tSam Kennedy didn’t mince words about the 2026 Red Sox’ play so far. Photo by: Barry Chin\/Globe Staff\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Conor Ryan<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 11, 2026 | 2:42 PM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

4 minutes to read<\/p>\n

A Red Sox season that once started with so much promise has quickly devolved into disaster.<\/p>\n

\u200bFollowing Boston\u2019s series sweep at the hands of the Rays on Wednesday, the Red Sox now sit 12 games below .500 at 27-39.<\/p>\n

\u200bThis marks the first time Boston has been 12 games below .500 in June since the 1997 season.<\/p>\n

Even though Boston is not completely buried in a relatively pedestrian American League, their playoff odds are now just at 12.8 percent, per FanGraphs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on WEEI\u2019s \u201cGreg Hill Show\u201d on Thursday morning, Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy didn\u2019t hold back when asked about Boston\u2019s poor start to the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important here at the outset just to acknowledge how embarrassing and unacceptable, maddening, frustrating \u2014 whatever words you want to use \u2014 the past two and a half months have been. There\u2019s no way to sugarcoat it. It\u2019s been awful,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cEspecially when you consider the stated goal of building upon what happened last season. \u00a0\u2026 It\u2019s been incredibly frustrating. I just want to acknowledge that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy then echoed that his own frustrations with the Red Sox are also shared by the rest of Boston\u2019s ownership group, including principal owner John Henry.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course. We all are. Everybody. John Henry. Tom Werner. Myself. Craig Breslow. The whole group,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cIt\u2019s been maddening just day in and day out. We\u2019re all frustrated. Our fans have got to be livid. We\u2019re just not where we expected to be. We have to own that. We\u2019re not pretending otherwise. We all watch the same games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several factors have played a hand in Boston\u2019s disheartening start to the season, including extended absences from franchise players like Garrett Crochet<\/a> and Roman Anthony due to injury.\u200b<\/p>\n

But Boston\u2019s inability to add another impact bat or two to pair with Willson Contreras has been a severe misstep for chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.<\/p>\n

After Wednesday\u2019s loss to Tampa, the Red Sox rank last in MLB in home runs (52), 29th in runs scored (258), and 27th in slugging percentage (.376).<\/p>\n

Despite Boston\u2019s evident roster flaws, Kennedy defended Breslow on Thursday \u2014 stating that firing the Red Sox exec is not an option at this stage of the season.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cI fully understand and appreciate questions regarding Craig Breslow and his job security and all that,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cBut the issue of a change there, just to be clear, that\u2019s not even on the table. Craig is working as hard as anybody in terms of getting things back on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut again, words are hollow right now, and as bleak as things appear, I think it would be ridiculous to say anything other than that we\u2019re all feeling it. We\u2019re working to get us back on that trajectory we really thought we were on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s comments fall in line with a report from The Boston Globe earlier this week<\/a> that the Red Sox have not considered firing Breslow at this point.<\/p>\n

Despite the sizable number of roster missteps that have hampered Boston since Breslow has been at the helm, Kennedy defended his chief baseball officer\u2019s efforts to build the Red Sox\u2019s pitching pipeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you zoom out and take a step back, we brought Bres in three years ago, well-known to the organization as a player,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe brought him in to lead this baseball operation and to do a lot of difficult things. Primarily, to re-work our pitching infrastructure. That had been an area of weakness. We\u2019ve had some great success there. We got back to the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the moves we made in the offseason, whether it was bringing in Sonny [Gray], Ranger Suarez or Willson Contreras, we really felt we were gonna take that next step this coming year. Obviously, that\u2019s looking like a huge mountain to climb. We can shut down and put our heads in the sand or we can own it, acknowledge it and just grind through it. That\u2019s what we\u2019re choosing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

One way that Breslow could presumably give himself some breathing room when it comes to his job security involves adding an impact bat before MLB\u2019s Aug. 3 trade deadline.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Buster Olney noted last week<\/a> that the Red Sox have been on the prowl for a bat already this year \u2014 even if said trade might require Boston to take on a \u201cbad contract\u201d to complete said swap.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But speaking on Thursday, Kennedy was candid when asked if the Red Sox should look to buy in a season where the odds of an improbable playoff push are growing smaller and smaller by the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the passage of time, you have to take an honest assessment and look and see where you are,\u201d Kennedy noted. \u201cAt the current moment, there are a lot of discussions going on in terms of improvement and how we get this thing back on track. Looking at every single area of the roster and player personnel. Bres and his team are doing that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut look, let\u2019s be honest. Unless things change dramatically, we may have to pivot here from what our initial planning was,\u201d Kennedy responded. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be responsible to do otherwise. But we\u2019re here in mid-June. We need to see what happens over the next couple weeks, and then we\u2019ll reassess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the Today newsletter<\/p>\n

Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Red Sox “There\u2019s no way to sugarcoat it. It\u2019s been awful.” Sam Kennedy didn’t mince words about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-730507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}