Sonny Gray on surviving Yankees nightmare: 'I felt like there's nothing I can't do now'

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ARLINGTON, Texas — When the Red Sox made a surprising trade with the Cardinals to acquire veteran starter Sonny Gray in late November, two major questions loomed over the move. First, there were doubts that Gray, after a good-but-not-great two-year stint in St. Louis, could serve as a true No. 2 starter behind ace Garrett Crochet. Perhaps more notably, there were concerns that Gray — seven years removed from the end of a poor tenure with the Yankees — had the makeup to perform in a demanding big market like Boston.

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In the last six months, Gray has answered both questions in a resounding fashion. He has not just pitched as a capable running mate to Crochet; instead, he has taken over for the injured ace and pitched like a true No. 1. As Gray enters his Thursday start against the Rangers, he is tied for the major league lead in wins (17) and ranks eighth in the big leagues in ERA (2.76). He’s the third Red Sox pitcher in modern history to record 17+ wins, 140 strikeouts and a sub-2.80 ERA through 27 starts, joining only Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens. Gray will almost certainly finish in the top five in the voting for American League Cy Young award. The Red Sox are 19-8 in his starts.

“I think I’ve done a good job of staying consistent and staying present,” Gray said earlier this week, assessing his season. “Not taking the highs too high and not taking the lows too low. Just having a mindset throughout to pitch to win the game, whatever the game calls for in that individual instance or individual moment.”

Gray came to Boston as a three-time All-Star, accomplishing that feat with three small-market teams (Oakland in 2015, Cincinnati in 2019 and Minnesota in 2023). In the Northeast, however, he was perhaps best known for his ill-fated two years in the Bronx. In 41 outings (34 starts) for the Yankees in 2017 and 2018, Gray posted a 4.51 ERA. He was demoted to the bullpen toward the end of his second season there after he posted a 5.56 ERA in 21 starts, then traded to the Reds in January 2019. After that deal, Gray repeatedly talked about how New York was “not a great fit” for him.

At the time of the trade, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow was asked if Gray was cut out to pitch in a big market again. He responded by noting that Gray waived his no-trade clause to accept the deal, signaling his desire to pitch in a place like Boston.

All season, Gray has risen to the challenge, even if he won’t concede that his performance has silenced some of the doubts about his makeup.

“That’s not for me to say,” Gray said. “I always felt like once I went through the experience there, I would be able to pitch anywhere.”

On an introductory Zoom with reporters after the Red Sox acquired him, Gray made headlines by saying he “never wanted to go (to New York) in the first place” and that it was ”easy for (him) to go to a place where it’s easy to hate the Yankees." He has faced New York twice during the regular season, holding the Yankees to three earned runs in 13 ⅔ innings (1.98 ERA) while striking out 12 batters. Ahead of likely starting Game 1 of the Wild Card Series in the Bronx on September 29, Gray cited the bad days in New York as a major catalyst for his success in his thirties.

“I feel the experiences — not only what I went through in New York, but my family as well — I just felt like I learned so much from that experience. When you’re in the picture, it’s obviously a lot more difficult to see the whole picture at times. But after the fact, to be able to take a step back and evaluate my time there, it made me so much better.

“It sucked in the moment, just for how it played out. But from my experience of that, I think it just made me a better person, a better baseball player, a better pitcher, just a better man in general from having having that experience and learning from that experience.”

Gray is proud that he was able to write another chapter in his career after leaving New York. In the last eight seasons with four different teams, he’s 83-55 with a 3.41 ERA in 211 starts and has been a top-seven Cy Young finisher twice.

“There’s two ways you can go after that (experience),” Gray said. “You can learn from it and move on and evaluate and take it for what it is, or it can completely ruin you. I’ve always said to myself after that experience that I felt like there’s nothing I can’t do now. I feel like I could go to any market and have success.”

Since joining the Red Sox, the eccentric, methodical Gray has fit in well in the clubhouse. He became fast friends with Crochet, who became a throwing partner during the winter in Nashville. Teammates like Jarren Duran have enjoyed Gray’s presence so much, they’ve sometimes worn their hats similarly crooked to his as a tribute. Coaches have marveled at Gray’s obsessive note-taking between starts — with data in hand, he spent a good chunk of time writing down personalized scouting reports of Rangers hitters at a table in the clubhouse Thursday — and his obsessive attention to detail.

Last week, Gray told a reporter that he couldn’t do an interview because he was readying himself for a between-start bullpen session... that was more than an hour away. Before one recent outing, when Boston’s pitching coaches told Gray that they were ahead of schedule and ready to go over the game plan with him five minutes early, he responded that they’d have to wait until the scheduled time.

Gray’s days are planned down to the minute, after all. It’s why, standing at his locker two days before his next start, he quickly dismissed a question about his pending free agency and if he’d want to re-sign with the Red Sox for 2027 and beyond. Weeks ago, a Gray confidant said that an extension with the Red Sox was “definitely” something the right-hander would consider. To Gray, any such talk served only to distract from the task at hand.

“I don’t think that’s even worth putting in the brain at this point, so I don’t think it’s beneficial for anyone to even address that,” Gray said. “There’s a time and place and this is not the time nor the place.”

As a free agent, Gray’s renaissance season may position him to receive a lucrative deal that some in the industry expect to match or exceed the three-year, $75 million deal the Rangers gave to Nathan Eovaldi two winters ago. Interestingly, though, Gray has not committed to pitching again in 2027. In a recent interview with The Boston Globe, Gray said he would retire “in a heartbeat” if his family signaled that he was wanted back home year-round, even if that meant retiring after the end of this year.

The Red Sox don’t believe that Gray, who turns 37 in November, is making an empty threat, and at least some in the organization believe retirement is truly on the table for him despite his renaissance season. Gray has very frequently had his two sons, Gunnar and Declan, around the team this season. Throughout the year, he has frequently stolen family time by taking one-day trips to his family’s home in Nashville on team off days, no matter where the Red Sox are playing.

“We can get into that at another time but not right now,” Gray said when asked about retirement.

Whether Gray’s stay in Boston was just for one year or continues in 2027, it’s an experience — and a place — he’ll remember quite fondly.

“I’ve very, very much so enjoyed Boston,” he said. “Enjoyed the guys. Fenway has been, and is, a very special place. I’ve enjoyed the people that I’ve surrounded myself with.

“We (the Gray family) like history. We’ve enjoyed Fenway and the people. We’ve enjoyed winning. It just feels like a big town to me. I’ve enjoyed a lot of it.”

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