The Red Sox recently committed to being buyers — and now they have their first reinforcement.
Boston, ahead of an important three-game set with the Yankees, acquired lefty James Paxton from the Dodgers after Los Angeles surprisingly designated him for assignment.
Paxton spent the last two seasons with the Red Sox, albeit only appearing in games during the 2023 season, before signing with the Dodgers this offseason.
Los Angeles landed infield prospect Moises Bolivar in the trade.
“He’s a guy with a proven track record on this team and in this division,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said of Paxton, according to MLB.com. “He’s left-handed, and checked a lot of boxes for us.
“We went into this stretch right now thinking that adding starting pitching was important for us, and we were able to get something done pretty early on, which is great and enables us to continue to look at opportunities to improve the club.”
There had been questions about whether Boston would be sellers, buyers or a combo before the July 30 trade deadline, and Craig Breslow recently declared his intent to buy.
Recently extended manager Alex Cora has often spoke of how the Yankees — and to some extent the Orioles — have the left the door open in the AL East, giving reason for Boston to go for it.
Paxton, 35, is having a down year despite being 8-2 with a 4.43 ERA.
He’s struggling to strike out batters this season with a career-worst 6.4 strikeouts per nine innings, and his walks and hits per innings pitched is 1.455.
He’s tied for the third-most walks in baseball with 48.
Those underlying statistics likely factored into why the Dodgers felt comfortable moving on from the southpaw with Clayton Kershaw and Tyler Glasnow on their way back at the time.
He signed with the Dodgers on a one-year, $7 million deal after going 7-5 with a 4.50 ERA spanning 19 starts with Boston last year.
Paxton re-joins a Red Sox team that enters their home series with the Yankees one game behind the Royals for the third and final wild-card spot.
Boston, which beat the Yankees on Friday, is 3.5 games back of the Yankees and 5.5 behind the Orioles in the AL East.
The Red Sox had been rotating through pitchers for their fifth spot in the rotation, with Cooper Criswell and Josh Winckowski making recent starts.