It’s all hands on deck when trying to capture a World Series championship, and it appears the Boston Red Sox are preparing as such.
Manager Alex Cora will have some tough decisions to make when the Fall Classic shifts to the National League park, as the designated hitter, of course, will be eliminated.
Speaking with the media Saturday, Cora made it clear, per NBC Sports Boston’s Evan Drellich, that J.D. Martinez will be in Boston’s lineup for Games 3, 4 and potentially 5, should the best-of-seven series reach that point. While conventional leads one to believe that Jackie Bradley Jr. would be the odd-man out in this scenario, that might not be the case.
Given Mookie Betts’ versatility and upbringing as an infielder, Cora apparently isn’t ruling out starting the 2018 American League MVP frontrunner at second base in World Series road matchups.
Mookie Betts at second base? Alex Cora:
“I don’t know man, he already played second during the regular season. There’s always a chance, I guess."
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) October 20, 2018
Betts’ big league experience at second base is minimal. The fifth-year star played in 14 games at the position as a rookie in 2014, and logged six innings in an early-August game against the New York Yankees. Betts tries to keep his infield skills sharp, though, as he regularly takes groundballs before games and during workouts, which continued in the team’s training session Saturday.
You can watch Betts take some grounders in the video here, courtesy of MassLive’s Christopher Smith.
If not at second base, Betts likely will start in center field on the road, with Bradley serving as an option off the bench. But Cora isn’t afraid to shake things up, so he could do what he has to do in order to keep the AL Championship Series MVP in the starting nine.
