How Alex Cora Felt About Kyle Schwarber’s Self-Deprecating Hat Tip

The stakes have grown higher for the Red Sox, but that isn’t preventing Boston from staying loose.

Case in point: Kyle Schwarber on Sunday night at Fenway Park.

Schwarber, who made his 11th start at first base in Game 3 of the Red Sox’s American League Division Series against the Rays, turned in a pretty embarrassing blunder in the third inning. After cleanly fielding a ground ball, the 2021 All-Star airmailed his underhand toss to starter Nathan Eovaldi, who was running over to cover first.

The veteran slugger found himself in the same situation an inning later, but he nailed both the scoop and the flip. Schwarber played into the sarcastic ovation that followed, raising his fists in celebration and tipping his cap.

Boston manager Alex Cora, seemingly like everyone else who saw the sequence unfold, got a kick out of Schwarber’s showmanship.

“That was awesome. That’s who they are,” Cora told reporters, as transcribed by ASAP Sports. “That’s what we do. Of course, we wanted to make the first play, and after that, he makes the play, and everyone was excited because he did it. He did what he did, and I think it was great. Sometimes we take this game too seriously, and you can actually not enjoy it. If you do that, and although we take it seriously, we also have fun with it.

“We’ve been having fun for a long, long time although it doesn’t look from other areas or whatever the people watch it, but we love the group. We love what we do. We’re having fun, and here we are.”

Schwaber and Red Sox went on to win Game 3 and now can reserve their spot in the AL Championship Series with a victory Monday night. NESN will provide pregame and postgame coverage for Game 4, which has a scheduled 7:07 p.m. ET first pitch.