EMERGENCE: The Red Sox Found Something REAL in 2026 — But BIG Questions Remain

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Forget what went wrong for a minute. What did the 2026 Red Sox actually figure out this season? [upbeat music] You are Locked On Red Sox, your daily Boston Red Sox podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, and welcome to Locked On Red Sox, your daily Boston Red Sox podcast. I'm your host, Gabby Maljanian, and today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel Rewards Club. Every week, check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you. Hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. Welcome to another episode of the show. I'm gonna admit something. This is such a weird time because for six months, something happens every single day. There's a game, or a lineup, or somebody gets hurt, or a call-up or something, or a walk-off, or a blow and save. You name it, there's always something, and even during the heart of the off-season there's usually something, 'cause there's moves being made or rumors about who a team could acquire. But right now the Red Sox are at home watching the remainder of the post-season. Moves cannot be made at this point. So because the season's over, and I've talked already about what went wrong and what the Red Sox need to do to improve the team moving forward, I figured it's time to, uh, show a little bit of positivity here. What did 2026 actually answer for the Red Sox? What did they discover this season? What we still don't know, I'm gonna be discussing on today's show, the moves Craig Breslow actually got right for 2026, and the biggest breakouts of the season. So w- who actually changed the way that we view them from a player perspective prior to how we may have viewed them going into the season? There are players who have good seasons, and then there are players who have seasons that completely change the whole conversation around them. The Red Sox had several of those in 2026, and I'm gonna start with the obvious one, which is Peyton Tully. Think about how quickly this happened for him, because he entered the year as one of the Red Sox most interesting young pitchers, and ended it as the guy Chad Tracy trusted to start game one against the Yankees. Those are two completely different levels of organizational importance. I mean, he wasn't even originally gonna start the season on the Major League roster, and then he got called up fairly quickly due to injuries, and he just stayed up and never looked back. So to begin with, the Red Sox didn't even see him as a piece in the rotation to start the season, then he's going up in game one in the Bronx? I