Is Craig Breslow Right About This Red Sox Expectation?

The Boston Red Sox own a 4-2 record through the first six games of the season, offering fans hopefulness as the club continues its 10-game West Coast road trip to begin the season.

Despite pitching being the biggest concern among experts and fans, the starting rotation has proven to be a strength early in the season. In the first trip through the rotation, the Red Sox posted a 1.79 ERA.

Boston chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” that the Red Sox’s early success was largely due to “building a pitching infrastructure” with new pitching coach Andrew Bailey.

“I think even in conversations that preceded spring training, we recognize that we wanted to build a pitching infrastructure off of leveraging our guys’ strengths,” Breslow told Hill on Wednesday. “And for almost the entirety of the rotation and the bullpen, that was secondary pitches, whether that was changeups or sliders, and kind of historically, the most damage in the game has been done on the fastball.”

Breslow said the obvious response is to throw fewer fastballs, crediting Bailey with pushing the idea and building relationships with the pitchers so they are willing to implement the changes and go out and execute them.

Along with the surprisingly good start by the rotation, Breslow said there’s belief within the team.

“We talked for the last couple of weeks about how everyone was super excited about Opening Day and how once we started playing meaningful games, games that matter in the standings,” Breslow said. “It doesn’t matter what the projections say what we’re supposed to be. It only matters what we go out and do.

“It’s really, really early right now, but I think what we’re seeing is a starting (pitching) staff that’s keeping us in games. We’re six games in, (Brayan) Bello has thrown twice and everyone else has been one turn through. It seems like one guy has been better than the next … whether that was Bello on Opening Day or (Nick) Pivetta’s incredible performance, despite the one-run loss, turning it over to (Kutter) Crawford and then (Garrett) Whitlock and (Tanner) Houk.”

It’s hard to get an accurate picture of the Red Sox this early in the season, but Breslow said his expectations are that the Red Sox should be a playoff team.

“We believe in each other, the guys believe in each other and they’re holding each other accountable,” Breslow said. “I think we’re seeing a really exciting brand of baseball being played and one that should stick around.”

After splitting their opening series with the Mariners, the Red Sox are in the midst of a three-game winning streak as they conclude their three-game set with the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday before they take on the Los Angeles Angels to finish up the long road trip to start the season.