Cherington On Outfield, Drew, Lester, Lackey

The Red Sox currently sit a disappointing six games under .500 and nine back in the AL East. GM Ben Cherington discussed a variety of pertinent topics today, as Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald reports (except as otherwise noted below):

• Cherington remains confident in his team’s core, indicating that he expects to rely on in-house options to carry the team back into contention. If they can do that, he said, “we’ll try to find any way we can to make improvements to the team as the summer goes on.” At this point, said Cherington, “typically, you’re sort of talking other teams into doing things, and that doesn’t always leave you in the best position to make deals.”
• If the team were to make an addition in advance of the trade deadline, it would most likely be an outfielder, he told Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM (Twitter link). Indeed, the team’s greatest struggles have been in the outfield, which is currently being led by Jonny Gomes’s .722 OPS. When asked whether Boston has the payroll capacity to add players this year, he made clear that it does, reports Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal (via Twitter).
• Cherington affirmed that Jackie Bradley Jr. is the team’s center fielder. “[H]e’s playing really good defense, he’s grinding, he’s making offensive adjustments,” said Cherington. “He’s a very important guy for us and we feel he’s the right guy to be our center fielder.” The GM was somewhat less sanguine about Grady Sizemore, saying that he “hasn’t made the impact as he’d like to.”
• Cherington strongly disputed the notion that the club was forced by public pressure into signing Stephen Drew. “We signed Stephen Drew because I made a recommendation to ownership to sign Stephen Drew,” he said. “It happened to be that [Will Middlebrooks] got hurt. Stephen Drew was still out there, he was a free agent, and we felt like, if we didn’t sign him, we might be in position to have to make a trade at some point and give up talent to address, potentially an area of need … .”
• He also said that the team has not entertained any thoughts of dealing away staff ace and pending free agent Jon Lester if the team cannot get back in the mix. “Our position hasn’t changed,” said Cherington. “We hope to have a conversation again about his contract. We’d love to find a way to keep him here [past this year]. … [W]e’re going to want Jon Lester pitching for us down the stretch.”
• Finally, Cherington addressed the question whether fellow starter John Lackey might retire rather than playing next season for the league minimum option that the club picked up due to the time he’s missed due to injury. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said, “and obviously our expectation is that he’s going to be here.”