Alex Cora Gives High Praise To Red Sox Bullpen

The San Diego Padres’ bullpen gave the Boston Red Sox trouble in the final two games of their three-game weekend series.

Padres’ relievers pitched eleven innings on Saturday and Sunday and surrendered just two runs, powering San Diego to back-to-back victories. After the series finale, Red Sox manager Alex Cora called the unit the best in baseball.

While the Padres won two of three games in the series, the Red Sox bullpen went toe-to-toe with them.

“The cool thing that I can say is we have the third-best bullpen in the big leagues,” Cora said.

Cora probably has a metric in mind for his ranking, though it’s difficult to say which one. By ERA, the Red Sox are tied for fourth-best. By fWAR, they rank fifth.

Regardless of the metric or Cora’s assessment, it’s the best Red Sox bullpen in several years. While they’ve started strong in recent years, the lack of starting pitching has caused the bullpen to run out of gas down the stretch.

This season, despite injuries, the bullpen has been rock solid. Aroldis Chapman and Garrett Whitlock are the anchors, while Justin Wilson and Greg Weissert have been excellent in the middle innings.

Justin Slaten is working his way back from injury, while David Sandlin and Payton Tolle are potential bullpen options down the stretch. Many of the starting pitchers are at or near career highs in innings, so the bullpen could play a big factor down the stretch.