Alex Cora Reveals Red Sox Strategy Vs. Aaron Judge During Sweep Of Yankees
How did Boston shut down the best hitter in baseball?
The Boston Red Sox shutout the New York Yankees in a 2-0 victory on Sunday afternoon to complete their sweep of the American League East leader. A big piece of their success over the past three games was their ability to limit superstar slugger Aaron Judge. According to Alex Cora, there’s a method to Boston’s madness.
During the Red Sox sweep of the Yankees, Judge was a nonfactor, as he went just 1-for-12 with nine strikeouts. On Sunday, he had a shot to put some runs on the board for New York in the eighth inning, as he stepped up to the plate with two runners on and only one out. Instead, Garrett Whitlock induced an inning-ending double play.
Judge has had success against the Red Sox in the past, but he had no answers during this three-game set. Asked about Boston’s approach against Judge, Cora revealed that the pitching staff made an effort to be aggressive against him, and it’s tough to argue with the results.
“Throughout the years, we’ve been aggressive with him,” Cora said per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. “Sometimes, he gets us. Sometimes, we do a good job with him. It’s always fun to compete against the best and for me, he’s the best in the business right now.”
“It’s very hard. We saw it last weekend, we’ve seen it throughout the season. He’s so good at what he does. But we used our fastballs in the right spots. We got some swings and misses.”
“You have to execute. We did a good job with that. It’s one of those where it wasn’t his weekend against us, but he’s gonna be OK, he’s gonna find it again and we have to face him again in a few months.”
With this win, it may be safe to say that the Red Sox are back. They have won seven of their past nine games, pushing their record back above .500 to 37-36. More importantly, they are back in the wild card race after falling as many as five games below .500.
Boston has some momentum, but they still aren’t playing perfect baseball. It’s better to be winning games than losing them, though, and the Sox will attempt to win their sixth straight game when they head out West to begin a three-game series with the Seattle Mariners on Monday night.
