Craig Breslow Has Warning For Red Sox Fans Ahead Of Trade Deadline

Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow is the man of the hour.

After trading superstar Rafael Devers in June, Breslow made himself the target of ire across Red Sox Nation. But the team has improved since the Devers trade thus far, providing early validation to Breslow's notion that the team had to cut bait with its disgruntled superstar.

Now, all focus shifts to the trade deadline, where Breslow will be under immense pressure to improve the roster. The Devers move freed up money, but it also left the team with one less star contributor, so this roster doesn't seem to be in its final form.

Within the last week, Breslow has made it pretty clear that he'd like to add an impact starting pitcher. He confirmed that notion during an interview with Baseball Isn't Boring's Rob Bradford on Saturday.

"I think so," Breslow said when asked if he was hoping to add a playoff-caliber starter. "We feel really good about the starting pitchers that we have."

Breslow went on to rattle off the accomplishments of the Red Sox's pitchers to this point in the season, from Garrett Crochet's dominance to Lucas Giolito's recent resurgency, while also highlighting the injury return of Tanner Houck and the arrival of Kyle Harrison from Triple-A as depth options.

So Breslow clearly has his sights set high when it comes to potential starting pitching acquisitions, but he also has a warning for Red Sox fans: those additions can be extremely tricky to find.

"We're not just looking for bodies that we can call starting pitchers, right? Like, if we're going to bring somebody in, they need to really move the needle for us. And so that's where we'll have our sights set, but it's really hard to find impact starting pitching."

"Is it the hardest, you think?" Bradford asked.

"Yeah. Yeah," Breslow responded.

If Breslow is preemptively cushioning the blow a bit, at least Red Sox fans can feel reasonably confident he's willing to go the extra mile. He did so when acquiring Crochet this winter, ponying up four top prospects to get the deal to the finish line.

We'll all just have to sit tight and see what the deadline has in store.