Red Sox Notes: Alex Cora Addresses Need For Better Defense

The Red Sox fell to .500 on the season when they dropped the second game of the three-game set against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field on Wednesday night.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora has been vocal about the defensive miscues as of late, even laying the blame on himself, and the loss to Cleveland was no different. With three errors on the night, Boston gave the Guardians the life they needed to extend innings and win the ball game.

“It’s just keep talking about it,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “We got to get better and there’s nothing — I think enough of the talking about it; we just got to perform.”

What’s been discouraging is the fact the effort is there on the field. The players are hustling to make the play. They just happen to fall short which leads to either a hit, an error or a run. In the fourth inning, the Red Sox committed three errors which allowed Cleveland to score two runs.

“It’s frustrating because we’re working and you know, it’s like I say it’s not lack of effort. It’s not a lack of work. It’s who we are right now. And just at some point, you have to slow the game down and I think that’s it,” Cora said. ” … Lack of effort it’s not. Lack of execution it is. It’s hard because you can’t get (the players) down because they’re trying. Just right now, it’s not happening for us.”

With only five hits, Cora also addressed the lack of offense generated at the plate. The Red Sox stranded eight base runners in the game.

“Situational hitting we didn’t perform,” Cora said. “Obviously toward the end, we put some traffic. It just didn’t happen.”

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Here are more notes for Wednesday’s Red Sox-Guardians game:

— Chris Murphy made his Major League debut when he came into the game out of the bullpen and pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings. The 25-year-old struck out five of the 13 batters he faced, committing one walk and allowing two hits.

— Starter Kutter Crawford threw 70.7% of his pitches for strikes (41 of 58 pitches) while striking out three. The right-handed pitcher allowed two earned runs on five hits in the loss.

— The Red Sox drop to 2-21 when scoring less than four runs in a game and 19-6 when scoring first. Boston has been held to two or fewer runs in 11 of their last 22 games.

— The Red Sox will look to get back into the win column and clinch the series when the Guardians host them in the final game on Thursday night. First pitch from Progressive Field is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET. You can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN,