It was June 5, just ahead of the team's three-game set against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Henry, who hasn't spoken to the media on the record since the departure of Mookie Betts in the spring of 2020, kept that streak intact. But that didn't stop the owner from expressing some displeasure in informal conversations with media members about a Red Sox team that entered the series nine games under .500 at 26-35.
The message wasn't difficult to decipher. Henry seemed intent on shifting some of the blame away from ownership and toward the front office and players. He had signed off on chief baseball officer Craig Breslow's firing of manager Alex Cora and much of his staff in April.
And yet, this was the product on the field? When the Sox fell to 14 games under .500 on June 18, the natural inclination was that Breslow would be next. And surely Chad Tracy, the interim manager, wouldn't be back, either.
That's what made Tuesday's news so remarkable. The Red Sox announced this week that Tracy was now their full-time manager and that Breslow's contract options were picked up, keeping him in his position through 2030. Tracy and Breslow sitting at a press conference alongside team president Sam Kennedy, with the manager's interim tag gone and the executive's future secured, was a reminder of just how far the Red Sox had traveled in the last three months It took something bordering on the improbable.
It took a season being pulled back from the brink. It took the best 30-game stretch in franchise history. It took 27 wins in 30 games, including a 15-game winning streak that matched a club record untouched since 1946.
It took a team that once sat 14 games under .500 becoming a postseason team, readying itself for a best-of-three Wild Card Series in the Bronx next week. And it took Breslow and Tracy going from two men whose futures in Boston appeared tenuous to two men the organization decided should help shape its future. "I think the thing that they share most in common, at least recently, is that the Red Sox asked them both to do very difficult things," said Kennedy.
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