The Boston Red Sox aren’t ruling out a shake-up, but they’d rather find an internal fix before making a splash in the trade market.
The Sox are struggling mightily, sitting five games below .500 and in last place in the lackluster American League East after getting swept by the Minnesota Twins this week. Boston’s pitching staff has been shoddy at best all season, and the offense is in a remarkable slump save for a couple of recent games versus the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
No one would blame general manager Ben Cherington if he rolled the dice and made some sort of trade — one bigger than acquiring Carlos Peguero — and it certainly would be welcomed by many fans looking for the club to shake things up. It’s not always that easy, though. Cherington acknowledged Thursday morning that the team has been monitoring the trade market, but it’s also looking for internal fixes, too.
“We’ve got a keep an eye on (the trade market),” Cherington said on MLB Network Radio. “As you guys know, sometimes there’s guys available, there’s things available to you early in the season but they typically tend to involve trades where you’re moving around the deck furniture. For whatever reason, a guy is out of favor with a team or is expendable and you’re trying to fill depth with those types of deals.
“The needle-moving deals tend to happen later in the summer. Not that they can’t happen earlier, but they tend to happen later in the summer. We’re keeping an eye on things and certainly every team is doing that — talking to teams and seeing what’s out there. I think when things aren’t going well– and we’ve had a rough stretch — you’ve really got to look internally first and figure out what’s going on and how do we get this a little better among ourselves first? Not that you’d rule out doing something externally, but how do we get things better internally first to put ourselves in a better position where we can consider moves at some point to supplement the team?”
Here are a few other highlights from the Red Sox general manager’s interview.
On Eduardo Rodriguez’s major league debut Thursday:
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On the team’s pitching issues:
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On David Ortiz’s struggles:
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Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
