While the Boston Bruins are letting their facial hair run wild as the team's Stanley Cup playoff run prolongs, Alex Cora soon will reunite with his razor.
The Boston Red Sox manager's beard was one of the big talks of training camp, and Cora stuck with it over the first month-plus of the season. But after Sunday afternoon's loss to the Chicago White Sox dropped his club to nine games below .500, Cora believes it's time to go back to his typical clean-shaven look.
"We have to make adjustments. It's an adjustment game," Cora told reporters at Fenway Park, per MassLive. "Probably I'll shave Monday. It might be an adjustment. I don't think hitting or anything is about shaving but, hey, people are asking for that."
Arguably no sport is more influenced by superstition than baseball, so it's not very surprising that Cora is about to bust out the shaving cream in an attempt to turn the tides. But the impending shave, as Boston's skipper noted, isn't going to fix the Red Sox's issues in the batter's box. Poor offense is what's really holding Boston back right now, and the panic button might need to be uncovered if those problems aren't eliminated.
Here are more notes from Sunday's Red Sox-White Sox game:
-- Tanner Houck was called on to start after Michael Wacha was placed on the 15-day injured list. The 25-year-old right-hander allowed three earned runs on four hits over 2 2/3 innings.
Tyler Danish took Wacha's spot on the roster and allowed two hits while striking out one in a scoreless fifth.
-- The three-game sweep at the hands of the White Sox was particularly rough for Trevor Story, who went 1-for-12 with six strikeouts.
-- The majority of the contest was watched over by a three-man umpiring crew. Home-plate umpire and crew chief Ron Kulpa exited the game with one out in the fourth inning after taking a foul ball from Gavin Sheets to the face mask. Marty Foster replaced Kulpa behind the plate after roughly a 20-minute delay.
-- The Red Sox are averaging 2.65 runs per game over their last 20 contests. They put up two runs or less in 12 of those games, according to the Red Sox Stats Twitter account.
-- Jake Diekman struck out the side in the eighth. The veteran left-hander now has ripped off five consecutive scoreless outings following his ugly showing in Toronto.
