The Red Sox have been a surprise this season and are just a game out of a wild-card spot. Manager Alex Cora was rewarded for Boston’s success with a three-year contract extension. Greg Fiume/Getty Images/TNS
Fenway Park was busier than usual this weekend. Three of the biggest crowds of the season saw the Red Sox and Yankees battle through their third series of the year, with New York taking two of the three games.
In the clubhouse, there were new faces coming and others leaving. The major league trade deadline is 6 p.m. Tuesday, and Craig Breslow, the chief baseball officer for the Red Sox, and his group were busy making moves to help improve the team’s chances at a playoff return after two straight last-place finishes.
In the middle of it was Manager Alex Cora, who was back in the home dugout for the first time since agreeing to a three-year contract extension that ended speculation about his future. The extension came as a surprise to most, but not to Cora and his family.
“We love it here,” Cora told me on NESN’s Friday Night Fenway. “Not only professionally, but I think for our family it’s a place that we can call our second home. It’s been amazing the way you guys treat us and the way you guys have embraced us. People were speculating about the offseason … but there’s nothing better than the comfort of being at home.”
Cora has fully embraced life in Boston. He took up running over the winter, and posts the length and pace of his runs throughout the season. On Saturday he lined up to take part in the Run to Home Base, running the longer 9K route for the first time. He wasn’t alone – hitting coach Pete Fatse, third-base coach Kyle Hudson, and more than 20 staffers and players’ wives took part in the fundraiser.
A night later, Cora was behind the plate to catch a first pitch thrown by Sox radio play-by-play announcer Joe Castiglione as part of the celebrations surrounding Castiglione’s Ford C. Frick Award presentation at the Hall of Fame last weekend.
Moments later he was back at his post in the Sox dugout, trying to manage the team to a series win over one of the teams ahead of Boston in the standings. He was hoping to coax enough innings out of a pitching staff depleted by overuse since the All-Star break.
He could only do so much. The Sox lost the rubber game of the series 8-2, their seventh loss in nine games since the All-Star break. Sox pitchers, the biggest surprise over the first half of the season, gave up 62 earned runs over those nine games.
“I don’t think a nine-game stretch dictates who we are,” Cora said after the game.
James Paxton, who pitched 19 games for the Red Sox last season before signing with the Dodgers in the offseason, is back with the Red Sox. Colin E. Braley/Associated Press
That’s true, but the stretch did highlight the need for more pitching help. Breslow brought starting pitcher James Paxton back to the team in a trade with the Dodgers late last week.
Paxton, who spent last season with Boston, will start Tuesday night’s game against the Seattle Mariners at Fenway. He’ll take the mound about an hour after the trade deadline passes.
The bullpen needs more help. Relievers Chris Martin and Justin Slaten are injured and won’t return any time soon, and the wild-card race is hanging in the balance. The Sox had a losing record in each of the four Augusts under Breslow’s predecessor, Chaim Bloom. A losing August will squash any building excitement the city has for this team.
Cora said Friday the organization has assured him it is dedicated to winning and will continue to add talent to the roster. He said that was an important part of the discussions they had surrounding the contract.
“I do believe we are in a winning situation,” said Cora, “and it’s going to get better not only this year but in the years to come.”
Keeping Cora in town will go a long way toward making sure that long-term future remains stable. The short-term success of the team will be determined by the other moves Breslow makes this week.
Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.
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