Wednesday will be a “tough day,” Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora revealed Wednesday in a press conference.
The club hasn’t released specifics but acknowledged an unnamed player is dealing with a family emergency shortly before a visibly somber Cora spoke with reporters ahead of Boston’s split-squad spring training games.
“We’re gonna have some great days, and we’re gonna have some tough days,” Cora told reporters in Fort Myers, Fla. “And at the end, we turn the page on whatever happens on the field and we’re very close. We’re very close. That’s a special group in there … they’re very special, very special. They’re very close and spend time together, and we’ll be OK, we know that. But it puts everything perspective again. It’s just a game. It’s, yeah, it’s a tough day. It’s a tough day.”
The Red Sox will do their best to go about their business with a pair of games Wednesday. One group will travel to Port Charlotte to face the Tampa Bay Rays, while Cora and a veteran-laden squad will host the Baltimore Orioles at JetBlue Park.
It’s another tough blow on top of what already has been an emotional camp, following the sudden death of longtime Red Sox reporter Nick Cafardo last week.
“(Wednesday will be) very hard. Just like you guys, I mean, it’s not that it wasn’t hard for us, but Nick was closer to you guys, but probably the same deal,” Cora said. “We’ll go through our preparation, and that group goes up there, and we’ll go here and we’ll play the game and be there for each other. But it’s going to be a hard day. It’s not going to be a fun day.”
