Alex Cora had quite the mic drop to finish up his World Series Game 4 postgame press conference Saturday.
After the Boston Red Sox’s win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Sox manager announced as he (quite literally) was walking out of his press conference that David Price would get the ball in Sunday’s Game 5.
It long had been expected that Chris Sale, who started Game 1 on Tuesday, would be the starter. But Cora’s announcement led to a lot of questions, mainly if Sale was fully healthy. Cora said Sale was fine, but didn’t offer too much else Saturday night.
Sunday afternoon, however, he provided a little bit more insight to the beat reporters. Here’s what the Sox skipper said about Price, Sale and the Red Sox’s pitching situation going forward, as transcribed by The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham.
“This puts us in a great position to cover everything. David right now, he’s throwing the ball well. He’s fresh as far as his arm, body-wise and arm-wise. We saw what he did a few days ago with velocity. We feel like a National League game, we might have to fit for him early, fifth inning or something like that.
“If it doesn’t happen, he’s going to be able to bounce back later on in the series.
“With Chris, obviously we’ve got one inning today if needed. That has to be the perfect situation. If we don’t use him and it’s not the way we want it to happen, he has extra rest for the next one and knowing that we’ve got Nate most likely for Game 7. Rick (Porcello) will be in the bullpen today. We’re more versatile this way.
“That was the reason. If it was a tie series, we were going with all our starters in regular rest. Chris was today, David [in] Game 6.”
Interesting.
Cora has not been shy about using starters out of the bullpen this postseason. As such, it’s probably fair to say that if he sees the chance to close things out and win it all Sunday, Sale and Porcello could see important innings late in the game.
