Alex Cora’s Stance On Red Sox Midway Into 2023: ‘We’re Not Bad’

Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora, while not content, isn’t counting out the 2023 season just yet.

Before the Red Sox hosted the Miami Marlins for a three-game series at Fenway Park on Tuesday night, Cora addressed the team’s general performance at the season’s midway point, sitting at the bottom of the American League East at 40-39 with 83 games remaining, including 12 before All-Star Weekend.

“We’re not great, we’re not bad, but I think we need to start playing better consistently,” Cora told reporters, per NESN. “There’s a few things that we talk about it and I mentioned it to the team is when we talk about defense, it’s not the errors, it’s the other stuff. You will make errors, you will throw the ball away, you will miss a ground ball.

“It’s where to throw the ball, where to stop the play. Not to give 90 feet to the opposition. And if you look (at) the last few weeks, whenever we’re going through that losing three out of four, three out of five, there’s always a play that put us in a bad spot. … There’s ways to prevent runs.”

"We're not great. We're not bad but, I think we need to start playing better consistently."

Alex Cora on where the team is now halfway through the season | #RedSox pic.twitter.com/UsyL0rBtUS

— NESN (@NESN) June 27, 2023

So far, the Red Sox are second among all teams in Major League Baseball, having committed 53 errors with a .981 fielding percentage, only better than the San Francisco Giants (58). Boston is also just one of three teams to reach the 50-plus error mark the quickest — the Washington Nationals are the third team (50).

Meanwhile, the AL Wild Card race remains dangling in front of the Red Sox amid their most recent cold streak — four losses in their last five games. They’re trailing the race by three games, behind the division rival Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays.

Nevertheless, there’s still plenty of the season left.