The Red Sox faced a decision when the trade deadline neared last season: keep him or deal him.
Left-hander James Paxton was pitching in his first full season since Tommy John surgery in 2021, and the Red Sox, who were still in the playoff chase, gambled—and lost.
Paxton was 1-3 with a 7.62 ERA in six starts from August 4 to September 1, and he missed the final month of the season with an inflamed right knee, as the Red Sox collapsed and finished 78-84, 11 games out of playoff contention.
Paxton went 6-2 with a 3.34 ERA in his first 13 starts, and the Red Sox were expecting for the Paxton of 2019, when he was 15-6 for the Yankees. But they’d used him up.
“It had been like 2½ years since I pitched [meaningful] innings in the big leagues, and I felt like I kind of reached a point where my body was just a little burned out,” Paxton said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I didn’t have much left in the tank.”
The Red Sox should have seen it coming.
“The life on my stuff was not there,” Paxton remarked. “I could still throw hard, but I had no finish on anything. The ball was coming in sort of lifeless. And it doesn’t matter how hard you throw; if it comes in dead, it will be sitting on a tee for them. I felt quite naked out there. I was grinding as hard as I could, but it wasn’t coming.”
He continued, “Earlier in the season, I got a lot of extra rest, and then we switched to a shorter leash. I wasn’t prepared for that after having surgery and taking so much time off. If you start going [every five days], your body becomes used to it; if you go six times a week, your body gets used to it. “We are creatures of habit.”
Paxton was 0-2 with a 9.39 ERA in four starts on four days’ rest last season and 7-3 with a 3.57 ERA in 15 starts on five or more days’ rest. The Dodgers, who signed him to a one-year, $7 million contract, will make sure the 35-year-old has enough of rest between appearances.
“I’ll be ready to throw more innings this year,” Paxton said. “The body feels really good, so I’m ready to go.”
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