Everything Alex Cora did last year worked in his favor. Cora pushed all the right buttons, made all the correct decisions and got the most out of (almost) every player in his dugout. It was almost as if he could’ve patted me on the back before pinch-hitting in a tied game and I would’ve delivered the big hit. That’s how good Cora was. He was brilliant.
This year? Not so much. Cora lost some of that magic touch sometime between 2018’s victory tour and the start of the 2019 season. It’s obvious. At times, they’ve shown signs of picking things up. But instead of parlaying those signs into the big run we’ve been waiting for, they go back to taking steps in the wrong direction.
What happened in 2018, when everything worked out, seldom happens over the course of a 162-game season. The Red Sox were never going to win 108 games again. It’s impossible to repeat that. I can’t hold that against Cora.
But from the very beginning things never looked right. The starting pitchers were playing catch up early on. It took them a few turns around the rotation before guys finally delivered quality starts here and there. April was a forgettable month for those guys. That can be directly attributed to the soft regimen they were given in spring training. They were coddled in March. They weren’t ready for April. Some of that falls on Cora.
From the very beginning the execution wasn’t there. I can vividly remember Oakland’s Ramon Laureano throwing out Xander Bogaerts on the bases twice- once when Bogaerts tried to stretch a double into a triple in a 1-0 loss. Sometimes you tip your cap to a player coming through in a big situation but, to me, that comes down to poor execution.
In fact, the Red Sox never mastered baserunning this season. Jackie Bradley was thrown out (by a mile) running from second to third on a ball hit to the left side of the infield in a July extra-innings loss to the Dodgers. Bogaerts repeated that mistake this week in a 3-2 loss to the Phillies. Poor execution.
Part of that has to fall on the manager, right? When your team continues to make questionable mistakes in winnable games, it speaks to a lack of discipline. Cora has to take some of the responsibility there.
From the very beginning these guys were still hung up on everything they accomplished in 2018. While the rest of the league, particularly the Rays and the injury-riddled Yankees, got started on 2019, the Red Sox were still reminiscing. It led to a lack of urgency that’s still plaguing them toward the tail-end of the regular season. The “we’ll be fine” and “we’ll figure outs” were OK in April. But it’s the end of August now and they never quite figured it out.
That cavalier attitude, in part, comes back to Cora. In mid-July he said, “We’ve been consistently inconsistent.” It never changed. Perhaps it’s because the Red Sox were never firm on letting 2018 go.
Of course, Dave Dombrowski gets a big piece of the blame for the lack of success this year. If anyone deserves some finger pointing, it’s him. Dombrowski thought he could return the 2018 team and expect the same results. That rarely happens. Big mistake. He thought a mediocre 2018 bullpen was enough to get by in 2019, minus Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel. Bad idea. That’s why he’s on the hot seat.
But the subpar play on the field falls on the manager too.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Cora and I believe he’s the right man for the job. A second-year manager won’t always know what he’ll learn after a few more seasons under his belt. I don’t see him going anywhere. He’s here for the long haul. Cora connects with his young players. I often felt John Farrell wasn’t the best at that.
The entire team has learned the hard way in 2019. Cora isn’t exempt.
