The Boston Red Sox do a great job of getting on base, but they also frequently run into outs on the basepaths.
It is an issue that plagued the Sox prior to this season, and despite a managerial change, poor baserunning has continued to be an issue. Manager Alex Cora often has harped on being aggressive on the bases, however, that aggressiveness sometimes crosses into the realm of carelessness, and costs them much-needed runs.
To try and combat the issue, Cora incorporated baserunning into the team’s batting practice, just like taking grounders in the field. The Sox skipper candidly detailed the current state of his squad’s baserunning during an appearance Wednesday on WEEI’s “Dale and Keefe.”
“I’ve been saying the whole time we need to get better,” Cora told host Dale Arnold. “Actually, yesterday during batting practice we had baserunning, we added that to the equation. We did that in spring training and we felt that just like infield, we take grounders in a different way than other teams. Defense is very important, well baserunning is very important. We got them out there during their groups and they’re running the bases, it’s something we’re preaching.
“Like you said, there’s certain outs that I don’t care, but there’s others that we have to be responsible, and actually we’ve been very irresponsible running the bases since Day 1 and we have to be better.”
Obviously, baserunning errors have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, but it’s a no-brainer to try and eliminate some of the brutal errors Boston has made this season.
