What Alex Cora Told Chris Sale During Important Fifth-Inning At-Bat

Alex Cora admitted he was not committed to the decision to pull Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale when he walked out to the mound in the fifth inning of Sunday's game against the Kansas City Royals.

"I was in between," Cora told reporters after Boston's 7-3 victory at Kauffman Stadium, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage. "When I know, I take him out before. I don't play that game of going out there and changing my mind. He convinced me.

"He was like, 'Give me one more,'" Cora recalled. "I was very straightforward: 'Throw strikes.' You saw 94, (96), then the slider. He got out of the inning. We needed that."

Sale dialed it up with Maikel Garcia at the plate with two outs in the fifth. After chatting with Cora, Sale followed through on his word and threw his fastest pitch of the day (96) before his 81-mph slider went for a ground out to end the frame.

"Getting through that was going to be big for me and he (Cora) gave me some words of encouragement, to say the least," Sale told reporters with a smirk, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage.

It ended Sale's day after 100 pitches. The veteran southpaw hadn't thrown that many pitches since May, per the NESN broadcast. Sale also became the most recent Red Sox starter to go five complete innings, a trend that has plagued Boston in recent weeks and led to the taxing of the bullpen.

"We can't keep going 4 2/3 (innings)," Cora said. "It was a big one."

The Red Sox will have only big ones from here on out. Boston, which is 5 1/2 games back of an American League Wild Card, opens its series with the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night. First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. ET, and you can watch it on NESN after an hour of pregame coverage.