Red Sox Notes: Alex Cora Praises Boston’s Notable Offensive Approach

The Boston Red Sox offense made sure to plate across plenty of run support for the pitching staff during Friday’s 7-4 win over the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium.

An impressive follow up to Thursday’s 7-3 loss in which the Red Sox’s lineup only managed to collect six hits and three runs while striking out nine times to Royals pitching. Boston more than doubled those tallies in both the hit and run categories on Friday, totaling 13 base hits with their seven-run offensive effort.

“Really good,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “We have to grind at-bats. There’s certain counts we have to stay away from it. Tommy Pham with a walk, then Raffy (Devers) with a walk, and then Xander (Bogaerts) with a big hit… Hosmer at one point, he had seen 20 pitches and he probably swung at three of them. One of them was a 3-2 breaking ball. Something we’re gonna keep talking about. We gotta stay in the zone. When we do that, we become a really good offensive club.”

Cora then proceeded to praise his Bogaerts, who went 4-for-5, notching his second four-hit game this season.

Cora added: “He’s really good at going the other way, and today he did it a few times,” Cora said. “Starting with the first at-bat. He’s been grinding through it, but today was one of those nights where you feel something great is gonna happen. He hit the ball hard all the time, stayed in the zone, and did an outstanding job.”

The Red Sox lineup attacked six-time All-Star and 2009 American League Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke — forcing the Royals to pull their heralded star after just 4 1/3 innings in which the right-hander allowed seven hits, two walks, and four earned runs.

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Here are a few more notes from Friday’s Red Sox-Royals game:

— Red Sox reliever Austin Davis walked two batters while allowing one hit and three earned runs — recording just one out in his eighth inning relief appearance.

— Josh Winckowski recorded his second straight victory after four consecutive losses, as tweeted by Bill Koch of The Providence Journal. Winckowski tossed five innings while allowing one earned run off five hits with four strikeouts.

— Following Friday’s win against the Royals, the Red Sox remain four games back in the wild card race.

— The Red Sox and Royals are back at it on Saturday in Kansas City. First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m. ET following an hour of pregame coverage, and you can watch it with NESN 360.