Yes, Ron Roenicke, it was.
The manager's synopsis of Friday came after his Red Sox actually won their third straight game, beating the Orioles, 8-5, at Camden Yards. By the time Roenicke sat in front of his Zoom camera, there was certainly a lot to digest. Colten Brewer had pitched four shutout innings as a starter. Darwinzon Hernandez's 2020 debut included two scoreless frames. Rafael Devers hit a 447-foot home run. J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts also went deep. (For a complete box score of the Red Sox' win, click here.)
But the real deep breath in, deep breath out part of the day had little to do with the score of the latest game. This has become the 2020 Red Sox' lot in life.
For the skipper it was maneuvering around having enough pitchers to finish the game after two of them -- Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree -- were officially dealt to the Phillies mid-game. Then came the farewell to the pair in the visitors' clubhouse after the win. And, finally, the realization that the life we knew was coming with this team had officially begun. (For more on the trade, click here.)
"Well, I think we put ourselves in that position by not playing better early," Roenicke said. "And it’s not all on the players. It’s certainly on me, too. So, if we’re in a better position, then we go out and get people. We’re just in a spot now where we feel like, this year’s still important, but we feel like the future – and not just one year, but the future of a few years. I don’t think an organization like this is just OK having one good year and then not doing anything for a while. I think the optimal, not really guidance, but the optimal message that you would give everybody is that we want to have a championship-caliber club every year. We want to be contenders every year, and to do that, sometimes you have to make moves.
"In a down year, if you can make moves to correct things or to get on track for the next few years, I think you need to do it. And I’m all for it. I want to win as much as anybody. I’ve done this for a long time, and I’ve been on a lot of losing teams, and I really don’t want to do that anymore. So, anyway, I understand it. I understand everything that goes on, and I’ve seen it happen a lot. So, that’s just the way it goes. Hopefully, we’ll continue to play good ball and we’ll still have fun. I know it hurts losing those two guys, but we’re still going to have fun, and we’re still going to compete."
Now comes the kind of trust fall we haven't had in this organization for some time. This is the Chaim Bloom leap of faith.
The idea that a team traded well-known, much-valued veterans to help reset rosters isn't anything new. Neither is the discomfort of the uncertainty when digesting the less-known players coming back.
Few were launching the confetti when Ben Cherington reeled in then-minor-leaguers Hembree and Edwin Escobar for Jake Peavy on July 26, 2014.
Phillies fans were also left wearing out the Google searches after Nick Pivetta -- the pitcher who joined minor-league hurler Connor Seabold in representing Bloom's return Friday -- was dealt to Philadelphia for Jonathan Papelbon on year and two days after the Peavy trade.
This is how it works. There are few no-doubters when making these sort of trade deadline deals that aren't involving the Mookie Betts of the world. But while we can't pass definitive judgment quite yet, we also can't deliver Bloom the benefit of the doubt.
It should be remembered that one of Dave Dombrowski's undeniable strengths was identifying the right guys when making trades. Go down his list of transactions with the Red Sox and you will find very few misses. Whether it was because of a reliance on the right people, or his own eye for talent, this was a security blanket for the Red Sox during some very key times over the past few years. Bloom still has plenty to prove.
What we have to work off of when it comes to the Chief Baseball Officer's resume is a run with the Rays which didn't include having the final say. There is also the Betts' trade, which seems to have gotten a solid piece in Alex Verdugo but can't truly be judged until we see how the careers of Jeter Downs, Connor Wong and Brusdar Graterol work out.
Bloom than clarified the "we've got a chance to help him reach a level he has not yet in his career despite the good stuff."
"When I say that I have a lot of faith in our group here, but I also don’t want to imply that there is something that somebody else didn’t do that we’re going to magically figure out," he explained."We’re always trying those things. But in some cases, a change of scenery can help a player like this. In some cases, further opportunity can help a player like this. We have talked about it at different times. Sometimes results don’t go a player’s way because of things that are beyond their control, or even if there are things that they did control that you would expect would turn out differently. I think there is some of that here too. Sometimes it takes that change of scenery for a player to exhale and maybe be able to do something he couldn’t. Sometimes it’s just a chance of getting an opportunity in some way that maybe had run out somewhere else."
So the Red Sox are banking on Pivetta "holding down a rotation spot" despite beginning this season having surrendered 10 runs in 5 1/3 innings, and already living a very uncomfortable existence in a starting rotation (71 starts, 5.42 ERA). He certainly isn't the first reclamation project brought in by Bloom (the 60-man player pool is full of them), but the righty does immediately become the most scrutinized one. (For a great look at how Pivetta tried to transform himself this past offseason, click here.)
Seabold is another story. Despite the fact he didn't crack the Top 20 of Phillies prospects, his results should be comforting. He has produced at virtually every level, including a seven-start stint in Double-A last season in which he 2.25 ERA. There was also a 2019 stint in the Arizona Fall League where Seabold gave up just two earned runs in 17 innings, striking out 22 for Scottsdale.
And then there was the timing, making the move with 10 more days left until the actual trade deadline.
"The timing of trades is not always something that you can foresee," Bloom said. "Philly came hard after these two pitchers. They really wanted to complete something and any time you have a situation where you’ve got some time before the trade deadline, you’re not just looking at the trade in a vacuum, you’re also trying to think about what are the options that you can have between now and the deadline, and obviously that’s something we have to weigh, but we felt that this return was a really good fit for us, that we got two pitchers that not only fit an area of need but are also pitchers we like that can be part of this thing for many years. I thought that was worth doing right now."
Let's face it, if either one of these pitchers can find a permanent spot in the Red Sox' rotation in 2021 or 2022 this is a win for Bloom. It would be what Cherington did when identifying Eduardo Rodriguez in the deal that shipped out Andrew Miller in 2014, and we have seen the importance of that development.
Workman and Hembree were ultimately going to be traded. That isn't up for interpretation. Now comes the true unknown. Welcome to the rebuilding of the Red Sox.