After Tuesday night’s latest one-run defeat Alex Cora sounded like a man who had reached his wits end.
“We keep making the same mistakes, we’re not getting better,” he said.
With a night to cool off and reflect, the Red Sox manager expanded on those thoughts and how the club can move forward.
Prior to Wednesday’s series finale Cora spoke at length about how the club prepares for games and the way he works with individual players. When someone makes a mistake, commits an error or has a mental lapse — as has happened a lot recently — he said the club always addresses it, even if it’s not always apparent publicly.
“We’re always aggressive talking about mistakes, it’s not like we let them go by, we just have to pick and choose when, understanding the players,” Cora said, using someone forgetting how many outs there are as an example. “What are we going to do? When they come back be like ‘hey you have to pay attention to the scoreboard! You forgot the outs!’ They frickin’ know they forgot the outs. You tell them ‘hey be on top of it, let’s go.’”
Cora said the club has a daily hitters meeting where players and coaches discuss various situations as they come up, and the players being able to address things amongst each other he’s found to be effective compared to him being the only voice they hear all the time.
That being said, Cora also noted that this year’s team being so young also makes for a different dynamic compared to his first season in 2018, when the majority of the roster was comprised of established veterans.
“The only guy that was young on that team was (Rafael Devers). The other guys were veterans, so you manage that one differently,” Cora said. “People are going to say ‘oh he can only manage a veteran team and win it,’ yeah, maybe? I don’t know. Shoot. But it’s different, a lot different, you have to teach the game, you have to be in constant communication about situations.”
Cora said that working with guys like Jarren Duran, Triston Casas, and more recently Ceddanne Rafaela — all of whom endured early-career struggles — has helped teach him the importance of patience and composure when it comes to managing young players.
“You have to be level. When things are going great don’t get too high, when things are going bad don’t get too low, especially in that dugout,” Cora said. “A lot of people are watching, especially the players. It’s like when you take your kids to the field and they don’t make a play, the first person they’re going to look at is dad. And if you’re upset that leaves a mark to your kids. So you better be there, be smiling, ‘come on kid you can do it,’ and inside you’re like come on man make that play. It’s the same thing. You’ve got to help them out. We’re here to help them out.”
But while he stands by his approach, Cora acknowledged that the team’s performance ultimately falls on him and that some kind of adjustments will have to be made.
“We get frustrated with the results but you have to trust the process, and right now I don’t know if the process is good, because we’re not seeing the results,” Cora said. “Maybe we have to change the process, and that’s on us, that’s on me.”
Extra innings
The Red Sox will go with Walker Buehler, Garrett Crochet and Hunter Dobbins in this weekend’s series against the New York Yankees. … Cora had no new information Wednesday on right-hander Kutter Crawford, who is back in Boston to be examined for wrist pain suffered earlier this week. Crawford was expected to begin a rehab assignment soon but had his latest live batting practice session postponed due to the wrist issue. … Right-hander Tanner Houck (right flexor pronator strain) is playing catch but has not progressed to throwing off the mound.
