Alex Cora seemingly has pushed all the right buttons in his first season as the Boston Red Sox’s manager.
One of those buttons, however, wasn’t easy for the skipper to press.
Cora and the Red Sox took the baseball world by storm in late May when they opted to cut ties with Hanley Ramirez, who’d been a staple in the middle of Boston’s lineup up until his release. Ramirez leaving the fold hasn’t had much of an effect on the Red Sox, who lead Major League Baseball with a 68-30 record at the All-Star break.
Still, the decision to let go of the veteran slugger wasn’t an easy one for Cora, who knew moments like these surely would come. In a Q&A with The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham, Cora opened up about Ramirez’s exit from the team.
“It was (tough), man,” Cora told Abraham. “That question was asked of me in every interview I had to be a manager. How are you going to handle this? At the end of the day, I feel they’re baseball decisions for whatever people want to think out there. It was hard, but we’re here to make tough decisions. That’s part of the equation. Regardless of the player, it’s hard to call somebody into your office and tell him that he’s going to be sent down or you’re not going to play them as much. With him, it was to say that’s it. He cares about the organization; he wanted to win a World Series with us. But at the same time it was what we had to do.”
It’s worth noting Ramirez’s release opened a door for Mitch Moreland, who made the most of his lift in playing time and earned his first trip to the All-Star Game.
