{"id":49749,"date":"2025-05-20T08:23:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T08:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=49749"},"modified":"2025-05-20T08:23:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T08:23:05","slug":"alex-cora-sends-blunt-message-to-red-sox-struggling-starters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=49749","title":{"rendered":"Alex Cora Sends Blunt Message to Red Sox Struggling Starters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\" class=\"has-video wp-caption \">\n<div class=\"h-responsive\">\n<figure class=\"h-responsive__inner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2172966883-e1747688541294.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2172966883-e1747688541294.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2172966883-e1747688541294.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2172966883-e1747688541294.jpg?quality=35&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Red Sox manager Alex Cora\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" data-img-load-time=\"1044\" data-dom-ready-time=\"1162\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"caption-credit\">Getty<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the offseason, the\u00a0Red Sox\u00a0appeared 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.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox, of course, went out and got lefty\u00a0Garrett Crochet\u00a0in 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\u2013also league highs.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey need to step up,\u201d Cora told reporters of the starting staff, after Sunday\u2019s ugly 10-4 loss. \u201cThat\u2019s the bottom line. We have to step up as a rotation. It\u2019s not only Garrett. It\u2019s everybody. We have to do a better job as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Red Sox Have No No. 2 Pitcher<\/h2>\n<p>Boston\u2019s starters have gone 13-15 on the year,\u00a0with a 4.45 ERA,\u00a0which ranks 24th in baseball. Their 1.41 WHIP is 25th in the game, and they\u2019ve allowed 35 home runs and 92 walks, both of which rank 22nd.<\/p>\n<p>Last season\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Veteran\u00a0Walker Buehler\u00a0is 4-1 this year, but has missed two starts with a shoulder injury, though he will return on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>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\u201310 hits and five walks for seven runs in 4.1 innings\u2013ended that stretch.<\/p>\n<h2>Alex Cora\u2019s Frustration Understandable<\/h2>\n<p>Part of Cora\u2019s frustration is probably much what the rest of Red Sox nation is feeling these days\u2013that this team is very good when it plays up to its talent, but it does not play up to its talent nearly enough. That\u2019s not entirely the fault of the rotation, but it\u2019s the chief offender.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox have seemingly alternated short winning streaks with short losing streaks, and the end result is a so-so team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has felt like this for three weeks but it doesn\u2019t matter, right? The record is the record,\u201d said Cora. \u201cThere\u2019s no moral victories, right?\u00a0We lost the game. We\u2019ve got to finish innings, we\u2019ve got to finish at-bats. We have to get better. Does it feel like we\u2019re way off? No. But it\u2019s another loss in the column.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getty In the offseason, the\u00a0Red Sox\u00a0appeared to have solved one of the major issues facing the team after a promising 2024 campaign fizzled out down the stretch&#8230;. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alex Cora Sends Blunt Message to Red Sox Struggling Starters - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=49749\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alex Cora Sends Blunt Message to Red Sox Struggling Starters - 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