Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora tried to piece together the bullpen puzzle Tuesday night against the Toronto Blue Jays.
It appeared for a brief moment that Cora pushed the right buttons until Boston’s relievers fell apart in the bottom of the ninth, and the Blue Jays walked off with a 6-5 victory at Rogers Centre.
With closer Tanner Houck unavailable due to his vaccination status, Cora tried to have Tyler Danish cover the eighth and ninth innings while protecting a one-run lead, but the right-hander quickly ran into trouble in the final frame after a clean eighth.
With runners on first and second, Cora then elected to go to Hansel Robles instead of Matt Strahm. Robles promptly allowed RBI singles to Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on just four pitches for his fifth blown save of the season. Boston didn’t record a single out in the ninth.
Following the crushing defeat, Cora defended his decisions to try to close the game out with Danish and Robles.
“That’s the way I saw it,” Cora said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “That’s the way I managed the game. I’m the manager here, and I decided to go with him for two innings.”
After Michael Wacha labored through the first five innings, the bullpen took over starting with Ryan Brasier, who worked a scoreless sixth before giving way to top-notch reliever John Schreiber for the seventh.
Cora brought Schreiber in for that situation after Rob Refsnyder’s two-run home run leveled the score in the top half of the frame, and with Toronto’s middle-of-the-order bats due up.
Schreiber set down the Blue Jays on just 11 pitches, and despite the low pitch count — the most pitches Schreiber has thrown this season in an outing is 26 — Cora opted not to use him for another inning.
“I mean, we got a game tomorrow,” Cora said. “He’s our best reliever right now. (Danish) did a good job. It was a bunch of righties, and he got good stuff. We tried to get 27 (outs) there, and we didn’t finish it.”
