Alex Cora Sends Blunt Message to Red Sox Struggling Starters

Getty

Red Sox manager Alex Cora

In the offseason, the Red Sox appeared to have solved one of the major issues facing the team after a promising 2024 campaign fizzled out down the stretch. This was a team badly in need of an ace starting pitcher and, it seemed, if Boston could address that hole, the rest of the rotation appeared ready to fall neatly in line.

The Red Sox, of course, went out and got lefty Garrett Crochet in a trade with the White Sox. He has been everything he was advertised to be coming into the season, delivering a league-high 10 starts and 63.0 innings with 73 strikeouts–also league highs.

The problem is that, once you get past Crochet, the rest of the rotation that looked ready to fall into line has, instead, just fallen apart. And manager Alex Cora has seen enough.

“They need to step up,” Cora told reporters of the starting staff, after Sunday’s ugly 10-4 loss. “That’s the bottom line. We have to step up as a rotation. It’s not only Garrett. It’s everybody. We have to do a better job as a group.”

Red Sox Have No No. 2 Pitcher

Boston’s starters have gone 13-15 on the year, with a 4.45 ERA, which ranks 24th in baseball. Their 1.41 WHIP is 25th in the game, and they’ve allowed 35 home runs and 92 walks, both of which rank 22nd.

Last season’s starters had their struggles over the course of the season, but still finished with a 3.81 ERA, seventh-best in baseball. No true No. 2 pitcher behind Crochet has emerged. Tanner Houck, an All-Star in 2024, was the best candidate, but he has been a disaster at 0-3 with an 8.04 ERA. Houck was placed on the 15-day DL last week.

Veteran Walker Buehler is 4-1 this year, but has missed two starts with a shoulder injury, though he will return on Tuesday.

Brayan Bello had been on a good stretch with five good starts after opening the year on the disabled list, but the showing against the Braves–10 hits and five walks for seven runs in 4.1 innings–ended that stretch.

Alex Cora’s Frustration Understandable

Part of Cora’s frustration is probably much what the rest of Red Sox nation is feeling these days–that this team is very good when it plays up to its talent, but it does not play up to its talent nearly enough. That’s not entirely the fault of the rotation, but it’s the chief offender.

The Red Sox have seemingly alternated short winning streaks with short losing streaks, and the end result is a so-so team.

“It has felt like this for three weeks but it doesn’t matter, right? The record is the record,” said Cora. “There’s no moral victories, right? We lost the game. We’ve got to finish innings, we’ve got to finish at-bats. We have to get better. Does it feel like we’re way off? No. But it’s another loss in the column.”

Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney