How the Red Sox's roller-coaster 2026 season led to stability for Craig Breslow, Chad Tracy

The Red Sox, after a scorching summer led them to the playoffs, extended Breslow's contract and made Tracy their full-time manager

Sep 23, 2026 at 9:04 am ET • 5 min read

Red Sox owner John Henry began to make his rounds.

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 three-game Wild Card set 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. "[Breslow], you came in in 2023 to get the Red Sox baseball operation on a path to sustain success back into a position where we could be competing for World Series championships. And, Chad, you came into what was an incredibly difficult situation in April and provided stability and leadership when this organization needed it most."

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Kennedy acknowledged there's still plenty of work for the pair to do, including finding success in October. Nevertheless, Breslow's willingness to make the boldest move available to him, firing Cora and six members of his staff in a last-ditch effort to jolt a floundering club, ultimately saved his job.

It was a gamble that could have buried him. Instead, it paid off.

And then there was Tracy, a minor-league lifer who played but never reached the majors, only to finally get his first shot in the big leagues as a manager, replacing a big name and World Series champion for one of the sport's most storied franchises.

And somehow, it worked.

"I was pretty committed to trying to achieve this as a player, and was committed to it from like high school," Tracy said. "Different obstacles got in the way that didn't allow it, and then I made the choice. I'm going to go start all over at the very lowest level and do it all as a coach because I love the game of baseball. As you get down the road, you certainly feel like getting to this point would be awesome. There's a lot of pride in knowing how much time and effort was put in on my end, on my family's end, everybody in this room."

Breslow, though, came into his situation with the Red Sox much like he did his playing career as a reliever out of Yale picked in the 26th round: as the underdog.

In truth, he wasn't the Red Sox's first choice. Numerous candidates declined to interview for the job, including Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes and former Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, both of whom have Massachusetts roots.

Following the firing of former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, there was an industry-wide belief that the Red Sox lacked direction and that Henry could be abrupt in his decision-making. He fired former president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski less than a year after Boston hoisted the World Series trophy in 2018. He fired Bloom with a year remaining on his contract after handing him what often felt like an impossible assignment: win games, make the playoffs and replenish a depleted farm system at the same time.

Surely, after Breslow's underwhelming start to this season, he would be next.

But the Red Sox did something different.

They weren't abrupt. At least not immediately. They listened when Breslow made his case for moving on from Cora and starting anew, something this organization hasn't always shown the patience to do.

And, in short, the group now feels some vindication.

"I want to start by thanking the ownership group," Breslow said. "Three years ago, they entrusted me with leading baseball operations. And having demonstrated the execution of a vision, or at least, the progress toward the execution of a vision to get the commitment to continue on this journey is incredibly gratifying. It's been a very difficult season for a number of reasons, but I think the path that we have taken to get to this point makes it all the more rewarding."

As the standings sit now, the Red Sox will start the postseason against the Yankees on Tuesday, one year after their biggest rivals ended their season in the same wild-card round.

After a disappointing end to the 2025 season and a rough start to 2026, there is some stability in Boston. More importantly, there appears to be some alignment. Breslow and Tracy are on the same page, with ownership now giving them the runway to see where this goes.

Time will tell whether it works.

But for a day, at least, vindication feels fair.

A scorching-hot summer saved Breslow's job. It also delivered Tracy the opportunity he had spent two decades in professional baseball chasing.

The two needed each other for any of it to come together.

"This season, regardless of what happens," Breslow said, "will be one that I will remember for the rest of my life."