Kevin Millar Sticks Up For Alex Cora Amid Ongoing Red Sox Plunge

The Boston Red Sox still haven’t found their footing — and we’re five weeks away from the 2025 MLB All-Star Game.

Manager Alex Cora admitted the team is “not getting better” during Boston’s series against the Los Angeles Angels at Fenway Park. The Red Sox avoided a three-game sweep, but they concluded the set by overtaking the 12-50 Colorado Rockies as baseball’s worst defensive team with an MLB-leading 55 errors committed.

Quickly, the organization has found itself in a far-too-familiar place at the bottom end of the division — Boston sits fourth at 30-34, just four games from last place — and 2004 Red Sox champ Kevin Millar isn’t ready to point the finger at Cora.

“They’ve been struggling,” Millar told WBZ’s Dan Roche on Wednesday.

Millar continued: “Alex Cora can only do so much, right? You’re the manager. The GMs and the organizations give you the players, they spend the money and then you only could do what you could do. But we all know there’s something just not right.”

Defensive woes are just the start of Boston’s problems. The lineup ranks third in baseball and second in the American League in strikeouts (588). It’s become increasingly difficult for the Red Sox — who lead baseball with 17 one-run losses — to apply any pressure on opposing pitching staffs when situational hitting isn’t their strong suit. Time after time, the offense has failed to come through with runners in scoring position, leaving it up to fate and the team’s (overworked) bullpen to play Superman in the late innings.

Starting third baseman Alex Bregman, the early team MVP, suffered a strained quad injury nearly two weeks ago, and it’s taken a massive toll on the franchise. The Red Sox have gone 4-8 without Bregman, all while showing zero signs of momentum. They sat second in the division before Bregman went down and the setback has anchored Boston to a point where the team is paving its way toward a fourth straight playoff miss.

Cora has spent most of the past four seasons plugging guys in and out, trying to make the most of a cost-efficient roster that’s gotten the team nowhere.

We’re now seven years removed from the last division-winning — and World Series-winning — Red Sox team and the trend hasn’t changed. Faces have come and gone. The frustration has boiled over, but the same mistakes are recurring and it’s cornered this year’s team in yet another desperate state to prevent itself from finishing at the bottom of the barrel — again.

Millar, too, recognizes that with this year’s Red Sox team.

“Now here we are and it’s back to the same stuff,” Millar said. “You don’t wanna feel that way, but it’s been that way — those are facts. They can’t win one-run games. … It is alarming and I think it starts internally. It starts with dudes. It starts with guys. Doors closed, the media doesn’t know anything. You know what? You gotta check some dudes and you gotta ask, ‘Who’s in?’ And this is about a team and a city that’s right here, and that’s more important than the name on your back. And I think that we forget that.”

Boston still has time to turn its season around, but it’ll take a level of play the Red Sox have yet to demonstrate they’re capable of performing at for a full season.