No on would have blamed Alex Cora if he lost his mind during his postgame media availability Wednesday following the Red Sox’s 9-6 loss to the Minnesota Twins in extra innings.
At some point, with the way Boston’s been playing defense and running the bases, something needs to whip them back into shape.
“It’s an area we’ve been bad,” Cora admitted postgame, sounding defeated after another messy and stressful game.
He didn’t mention any players by name, but it was no secret what he was referring to.
Down 4-0 with two outs in the fourth, Alex Verdugo admired a hard hit ball that flew toward center. Unfortunately, it didn’t leave the park, and instead of hitting a double, he was thrown out back-tracking to first.
Also, Christian Vázquez didn’t run home on contact after seemingly forgetting the Red Sox had two outs.
“Forget the outs, we didn’t run out of the box; probably a different game early on,” Cora admitted.
“It feels like sometimes we’re not doing enough, coaching wise, because it just keeps happening, you know? Yeah, it’s on them. It’s on us. I think it’s, as a group, we’re not doing a good job with that — those things you can control. Know the outs, run out of the box. Each one of those, we get to this stage, it’s tough to watch, right? It is not acceptable. We talk about it, but it keeps happening. As a staff we got to keep pushing, we can’t give up.”
The mental errors make the recent slump the Red Sox have been trying to get out of look worse. The team has 87 errors in 127 games so far this year, and it looks like things had to get worse Wednesday before they could get better.
Boston will look to bounce back Thursday in a series finale with the Twins.
