Red Sox
Almost no one believes Cora, who often stresses a world beyond managing, will be back in 2025.
COMMENTARY
Could these Red Sox be the most average Red Sox in Red Sox history?
They are not a .500 team at the second, no-hit into the seventh inning of a 5-0 loss to Detroit on Thursday, but it’s been their default state. Alex Cora’s team has been 1-1, 2-2, 7-7, 9-9, 10-10, 19-19, 22-22, 24-24, 26-26, 27-27, and 28-28.
Rob Manfred’s MLB has, let’s call it a top eight — Philadelphia, the Yankees, Cleveland, Baltimore, the Dodgers, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. It has a clear bottom six — the Mets, Oakland, Angels, Colorado, Miami, and the White Sox.
That leaves 16 middlers, from the win-12-straight, lose-7-straight Twins to Cincinnati and Houston, healing and slowly climbing after a 12-24 start. In there sit the Red Sox, hamstrung on offense and regressing on the mound, hoping to be among the ones to stumble into something.
Baseball’s best pitching staff in April is 18th in ERA in May, with Tanner Houck (2.27) the only regular starter with an ERA south of 5.00. The offense hasn’t been dreadful, but it’s certainly been bottom third, and will average fewer than four runs per game this month unless it scores 11 on Friday.
They’re fine. By current expectations, anyway. (Just ignore those Red Sox Hall of Famers who were reminiscing on Thursday night, will you?)
“I really like this group. It’s a group that we have to teach the game. Not only before, but during and after, and the next day,” Cora told the Globe’s Julian McWilliams on the ‘Baseball Isn’t Boring’ podcast on Thursday. “We’re gonna see some great things, and we’re going to see some things that we’ve got to be like, ‘Ah, that’s not going to work.’
“Overall, a group that right now, we are where we are. We understand we’re behind in the division, but in the hunt for a wild card spot. I do believe, with Triston [Casas] and [Masataka] Yoshida, the offense is going to take off. The pitching, we got to stay healthy. We’re getting to the point right now that one more injury is going to put us in a bad spot. . . . If we [stay healthy], it should be fun. We’re going to play some meaningful games in September.”
It’s quite the shift from November 2017, when Cora strode into Boston days after the Astros team he was bench coach of won its first World Series. They felt ascendant. So did the Red Sox, 93-69 and AL East champions in back-to-back years, with a core on the cusp of something greater.
“For a lot of people, it’s a challenge,” he said at his introduction about the Red Sox’ pressure cooker of expectations. “But for me, it’s not.”
He was right, and we know what came next. First, for them, the greatest Red Sox season any of us will be alive to see. Then, for Cora, a chastening — first with 2019’s flop, then with everything the 2017 Astros became.
He returned a different man to a different team in November 2020, allowed back into the sport after 11 months away and giddy, in his words, “for the opportunity to manage once again and return to the game I have loved my entire life.”
You’re excused for forgetting — 2020 was a bit of a thing across the board — but there was a time that return seemed no sure thing. The possibility of Cora and his old Houston boss, A.J. Hinch, in opposing dugouts felt a long way off.
The Tigers hired Hinch that same offseason; a week earlier, in fact. Three seasons on, they’re astride in the same morass, more alike than different.
Tarik Skubal (7-1, 2.01 ERA), whom the Sox mercifully miss this weekend, would be head-to-head with Houck for the AL Cy Young were it awarded today. Their bullpen was the early surprise, but it’s been a similar slide back toward the expected behind a tough May.
Aggressive on the bases? Check. Inconsistency from the expected heart of the order? Check. The general ups-and-downs of a “let the kids play” mindset? Check.
The biggest difference? Hinch signed a long-term contract extension in December. He was already believed to be signed through 2025; though the length of the new deal wasn’t revealed, baseball ops president Scott Harris stressed Hinch would be manager “for a long time.”
Cora’s job status would be a larger question if the team were more front of mind in New England, but also if the conclusion didn’t feel written. Almost no one believes Cora, who often stresses a world beyond managing, will be back in 2025.
He began his chat with McWilliams talking about arriving to the park later than he did in his first days in charge, and when McWilliams quipped about Cora getting a deal similar to the $70 million that Tyronn Lue got to stay with the Los Angeles Clippers, the manager laughed at the thought of what’s next.
“Just enjoy every day,” he said.
Hinch, like Cora, was kept in place during a regime change. The Tigers fired two-decade team executive Al Avila late in the 2022 season, replacing him with Harris and general manager Jeff Greenberg. Yet while Cora expressed little concern about the coming end of his contract, Hinch continued to speak openly about a long-term commitment to what Detroit was building.
His extension came weeks after Craig Counsell’s megabucks jump to the Cubs, and amid all sides making clear how much they enjoy working with each other.
Say what you will about Cora, but there is no question many would have gotten far less from this roster than he has. Hope has never left town here, the fringes of contention still feeling reasonably in reach even when Enmanuel Valdez is seventh on the team in plate appearances.
Neither he nor baseball boss Craig Breslow shied from the future when asked by reporters this spring, Breslow noting “Alex has been pretty outspoken about his comfort with the situation. Similarly, I’ve talked about how excited we are for him to manage this team.”
Boston’s only had three teams finish square on .500, the last in 1985. It was a disappointment despite a Wade Boggs batting title, the Sox losing their last four after a hot September and drawing fewer than 2 million in a full season for the last time in their history.
A year later, Roger Clemens won the Cy Young and the Sox were in the World Series to kick off three division titles in five years. It can happen quick, given the right ingredients.
But you need the right chef, and it appears all sides are at peace with the Red Sox going shopping for a new one this fall.
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