Red Sox Notes: How Alex Cora Assesses Tanner Houck’s Topsy-Turvy Season

Tanner Houck has experienced a little bit of everything in his first season as a full-time starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

There’s been good starts, bad starts and two months off after suffering a scary injury in which Houck took a liner off the face.

It’s hard to assess Houck’s season given the topsy-turvy nature of it, where he can look like a front-end starter one outing and the next look like a pitcher who would be better served to come out of the bullpen.

But Alex Cora’s belief in Houck certainly isn’t waning, even after an uninspiring start Tuesday night against the Texas Rangers with the right-hander tossing four-plus innings, allowing two runs on three hits with four strikeouts and four walks in a 6-4 defeat at Globe Life Park.

Despite the Red Sox manager’s continued faith in Houck, he knows that the 27-year-old can provide more.

“He was finding his groove until he got hit with the line drive,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “Overall, it’s one of those that we’re still trying to push him to be great. Stuff-wise he’s one of the best, not only here, but in the league. We got to make sure we harness that stuff in the strike zone. … We got to keep pushing to go out there every five days and give us six innings. It just didn’t happen tonight.”

Houck’s season took a dramatic turn when he sustained a facial fracture in mid-June. Since then, the right-hander has struggled with consistency and an inability to work deep into games.

Houck had one of his better performances of the season last time out against the New York Yankees, but wasn’t able to replicate the results when facing the Rangers.

“The feedback you get from the opposition, the swings that you get from the opposition, obviously tells you a lot,” Cora said. “Throughout the year, he was very efficient. He was throwing a lot of strikes. Just tonight he didn’t.”

Command was Houck’s biggest issue against a deep and talented Rangers lineup. He tied a season-high with four walks as he tossed only 49 of his 89 pitches for strikes.

And for Houck, like after nearly every start this season, there are things he needs to work on if he wants to back up his manager’s belief in him.

“Felt good with my stuff. I think the command was not as up to par as it had been,” Houck told reporters, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “Didn’t throw as many strikes as I would’ve liked. Part of the game. Come back tomorrow, continue to work, continue to watch video, push myself to get better each time. I can look myself in the mirror and know I that I got to be better with my command.”

Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Red Sox-Rangers game:

— It wasn’t just Houck who struggled with control. The Red Sox issued eight walks on the night, including John Schreiber walking in a run with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning.

“We were off,” Cora said of the free passes. “At this level, you can’t do that.”

— Nathan Eovaldi didn’t perform his best against his former team this season. Eovaldi struggled with his command Tuesday, going five innings while allowing three runs on four hits to go with three strikeouts, three walks and a hit batter. In two starts against the Red Sox this season, the veteran right-hander let up seven runs and seven walks in 10 1/3 innings.

— Luis Urías committed a throwing error on a routine play, giving the Red Sox 99 errors on the season.

— Masataka Yoshida, who went 1-for-4 with a two-run single in the loss, has slowed down offensively over the second half of this season as he gets acclimated to the 162-game slog in his Major League Baseball season. But Cora has no plans on giving him additional rest over the final stretch of the season.

“I know he’s been scuffling a lot, especially with men in scoring position throughout the season,” Cora said. “We’re going to keep playing him. It’s a good test for him, go all the way to the finish line. It’s a challenge. It’s a different season for him, but he’s not making excuses.”

— The Red Sox close out their three-game series with the Rangers on Wednesday. First pitch from Globe Life Park is scheduled for 2:05 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.