Sam Kennedy calls this Red Sox season 'embarrassing and unacceptable'

The Boston Red Sox are now a season-worst 12 games under .500 after getting swept by the Tampa Bay Rays this week. They have the second-worst record in the American League at 27-39 and are 5.5 games out of a playoff spot.

Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Thursday morning for the Front Office Report, Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy acknowledged what is clear to everyone: this season has been "embarrassing and unacceptable." Listen to the full interview above.

"I think it's important here at the outset, Greg, just to acknowledge … how embarrassing and unacceptable, maddening, frustrating, whatever words you want to use, the past two and a half months have been," Kennedy said. "There's no way to sugarcoat it. It's been awful, especially when you consider the stated goal of building upon what happened last season. … It's been incredibly frustrating, and I just want to acknowledge that right at the outset. It's on all of us. We have to get better."

Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow have both been adamant, for weeks, that the organization has been "aggressively" trying to improve the team, including via trade. For the first time, Kennedy struck a different tone on Thursday, acknowledging the Red Sox could pivot to selling before the Aug. 3 trade deadline if things don't turn around soon.

"With the passage of time, yeah, you have to sort of take an honest assessment and look and see sort of where you are," Kennedy said. "At the current moment, there are a lot of discussions going on in terms of improvement and how we get this thing back on track, looking at every single area of the roster and player personnel, and Bres and his team are doing that. But look, let's be honest, unless things change dramatically, we may have to pivot here from what our initial planning was. It just, it wouldn't be responsible to do otherwise. But here in mid-June, we need to see what happens over the next couple weeks, and then we'll reassess."

One change that's not on the table at the moment: firing Breslow. Kennedy confirmed a recent Boston Globe report that he and ownership are not considering moving on from their CBO.

"Look, I fully understand and appreciate questions regarding Craig Breslow and his job security and all that," Kennedy said, "but the issue of a change there, just to be clear, that's not even on the table. He is working as hard as anybody in terms of getting things back on track, but again, words are hollow right now. And as bleak as things appear, I think it'd be ridiculous to say anything other than we're all feeling it, and we're working to get us back on that trajectory that we really thought we were on coming into the end of last year and getting to the postseason, and then having a stated goal of taking that next step in October. That was the goal, and here we are. It's just, 66 games in, we've played 40% of the season and we're 12 games under .500 and last in the AL East. That's pretty much all we need to know. It's just not acceptable."

Chris Curtis followed up by asking Kennedy, who has been with the Red Sox since 2002, if he believes his own job is safe.

"That obviously is a question for others," Kennedy said. "Listen, I've been here a long time, and I love this organization, and my job is to set the overall course for the franchise. I'm the CEO and president, and work for ownership. I'm a partner in Fenway Sports Group. I work day-to-day with John [Henry] and Tom [Werner] and Mike [Gordon] and all of our partners, with Theo Epstein, who's a partner. All of us are feeling this. So, I don't think about my job security each and every day. I think about what we need to do to get better, because it falls on all of us. Nobody, nobody is free and clear of blame. And again, having been here 25 years, we've had some incredible high highs and some very low lows, but I don't remember a period really feeling it as viscerally as we feel it right now. It's been awful."