BALTIMORE — When Alex Cora was 40 minutes late for pregame media session at Camden Yards on Friday, speculation began to brew that some sort of shake-up was afoot for the Red Sox . When Cora’s office door finally opened, he explained he was simply on the phone with his twin sons, who had flown home to Puerto Rico.
No major changes were made to Boston ’s roster, coaching staff or front office — but the fact that the delay led to at least some doubt spoke volumes. After a brutal sweep at the hands of the Yankees in which Boston scored three total runs, the Sox arrived in Baltimore for their third road trip of the season with a 9-16 mark that rates as the second-worst in the American League. A sputtering offense reached a new nadir at Fenway Park and now ranks among baseball’s worst in nearly every category.
As he took stock of his team Friday, an at-times-fiery Cora was clear that his belief in the group hasn’t wavered despite an extremely frustrating start. His immediate goals are two-fold: helping his players block out the noise surrounding the club and helping them focus on executing what he believes to be a sound gameplan, especially offensively.
“You have to cancel the noise because it’s loud. Very loud,” Cora said. “Anywhere you look, they’re talking about us and how bad we are. Deservedly so. The record is the record. But I don’t think we have a bad team. We’re just going through a bad stretch.
“Offensively, we’re a lot better than this. Like I’ve said before, do we have guys who are gonna hit 40 (homers)? Probably not, but they will hit.”
While the Red Sox have had some poor starting pitching performances — and some bullpen meltdowns, like Thursday’s — in the first four weeks, the offense has been the persistent problem. Entering Friday’s game, Boston’s lineup ranked tied for 27th in average (.223), 29th in OPS (.636), 26th in runs (92), 24th in walks (83) and tied for last in home runs (14). In 12 of 25 games, the Red Sox have scored two or fewer runs.
Those numbers have caused some to believe hitting coach Pete Fatse’s job might be in jeopardy . Cora, however, remains an ardent Fatse supporter, according to sources, who fully believes in Fatse’s preaching. While chief baseball officer Craig Breslow would likely be the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to any coaching changes, Cora, who has never made an in-season coaching change, would have a say, too. On Friday, he offered a vote of confidence to Fatse and his two assistants, Dillon Lawson and John Soteropulos.
“We trust Pete and the group to prepare the guys,” Cora said. “It’s not about preparation, to be honest with you. I think it’s more about execution and we have to execute. And they know that.
“It’s not lack of trying. It’s lack of execution — and we will execute. We will. When? Hopefully, tonight."
Cora pointed to a few factors as reasons to be optimistic. First, he said he believes any team would struggle against a run of pitchers that includes stars like Detroit ’s Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez and New York’s Max Fried and Cam Schlittler in the last week. Cora has taken solace in small victories like Ceddanne Rafaela ’s improved walk rate, good signs in recent days from Jarren Duran and the fact Caleb Durbin is chasing less than he did earlier in the year.
Still, the persisting issues have been irritants, too. The Red Sox would like to see their chase rate (30.8%) come down. They’d like to solve a years-long issue of putting the ball in play with runners in scoring position. They’d like to be a little more patient and not have momentum halted by quick innings — a problem against New York. And most importantly, the Red Sox simply need some underperformers like Duran, Durbin, Trevor Story , Roman Anthony , Marcelo Mayer and Carlos Narváez to get going — fast.
“There’s a few trends that are not good,” Cora conceded. “Are we off of who we are? We’re not happy with our offensive performance. We have to be better. We’ll find it and we’re gonna be OK.”
In years past, Cora has frequently said he thinks going on the road — and escaping all that comes with playing at Fenway — can be helpful for a team looking to break out. That mission will begin this weekend in Baltimore and continue with a third consecutive in-division series in Toronto , starting Monday.
“What will help is to get hits and to hit the ball hard, to be honest with you,” Cora said. “It can be at Fenway, here, Toronto, it doesn’t matter. We have to hit the ball hard and to start get going offensively. Yeah, it’s early but we’ve got to get going and start gaining some momentum.
“For how horrible people are portraying the series against New York... I break it down. I don’t get caught up on the whole, ‘It’s over and the rivalry’s over’ and this and that. I don’t get caught up on that. Were there a lot of Yankees fans there? Yeah. And they swept us? Yeah. That happened. But we have a good baseball team. We’re going to keep grinding, keep going and don’t get caught up on the whole thing.”
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