Alex Cora has returned.
The Boston Red Sox intend to rehire the manager who led them to the greatest season in franchise history, according to multiple reports. Veteran baseball insider Jon Heyman was the first to report the news Friday.
The Red Sox have yet to officially announce the move.
Cora spent two seasons as Red Sox manager, leading Boston to a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series title as a rookie skipper in 2018. He and the team parted ways following the 2019 season when Cora was implicated in a massive sign-stealing cheating scandal from his time as Houston Astros bench coach. The league ruled Cora played a big part in the 2017 scandal and suspended him for the entire 2020 season.
From the moment he and the team parted ways, it was speculated Cora eventually would return. The team didn’t do much to dispel the notion, and Cora quickly became a candidate after the club decided against retaining manager Ron Roenicke following a last-place finish in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
One of the selling points, in addition to Cora’s familiarity with the front office and ownership, had to have been his relationship with Boston’s young core. Cora, by all accounts, got along very well with some of the Red Sox’s younger stars, like Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers and Eduardo Rodriguez, who all had arguably their best seasons under Cora’s watch.
If Rodriguez’s tweet shortly after the news broke is any indication, the Red Sox are going to have a happy clubhouse once they reconvene for the 2021 season.
