Red Sox boss declines to say if Sonny Gray will be club’s No. 2 starter

When the offseason began Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said one of the team’s priorities would be adding a starting pitcher to the front of the rotation who could slot in behind Garrett Crochet as the club’s No. 2 starter.

Will Sonny Gray be that guy? Asked directly Tuesday night, Breslow declined to say.

“I don’t know how much sense it makes in November to put a number on a guy. Sonny is a very talented major league pitcher, the seasons that he’s put up pretty consistently indicate that to be the case,” Breslow said. “That said, we still intend to improve our team, and exactly what that looks like we don’t know right now, but we’ll continue to explore opportunities and figure out where that takes us.”

Breslow said he initially expressed interest in Gray as far back as the trade deadline, and after the season talks between the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals quickly picked up. The Red Sox boss said Gray represented an opportunity to improve the starting rotation, and given the Cardinals’ desire to begin a full-scale rebuild the two sides were quickly able to work out an agreement.

Once Gray signaled his approval, the trade was able to move forward.

Though Breslow did not rule out the possibility of further rotation additions, he did indicate the club’s primary focus will shift to position players in the coming weeks.

“We’ve been pretty transparent about our desire to add to the rotation and our desire to add a bat on the position player side,” Breslow said. “It’s impossible to know exactly what the order of operations will be so we’ll continue to look at opportunities to improve the team, but I wouldn’t say we’re going to exclusively focus on one thing at the expense of the other, we want to be open minded so I don’t think this is a close off all opportunities and look exclusively at position players but I also think there’s a chance that comes into focus now over the next couple of weeks.”