The Red Sox opened a three-game series with the Blue Jays in Toronto on Monday carrying the aftershocks of a managerial shakeup that landed over the weekend. Boston fired Alex Cora on Saturday and turned the club over to Chad Tracy, then arrived at Rogers Centre a day after beating the Orioles 5-3 to take the series in Baltimore.
Trevor Story did not hide his reaction to the move. He said he was shocked by the decision and added that he thought the coaching staff was among the best in the world, with the team’s performance on the field costing them their jobs. That is the backdrop as Boston tries to steady itself against a Toronto club that has won five of its previous seven and took two of three from the Guardians over the weekend.
Ranger Suarez got the ball for Boston in the opener, and the matchup immediately put pressure on a rotation that has not given the Red Sox enough length. Suarez allowed four runs in 4⅔ innings in his most recent start against the Yankees, and he has failed to complete five innings in three of his five starts. Boston entered the night 11-17 and had won only when its starters worked deep enough to keep the bullpen out of the center of the game; the Red Sox were 10-1 when their starting pitchers completed six innings.
Suarez, who signed a five-year, $130 million deal in January, had faced Toronto twice before and delivered one of the best outings of his season against the Blue Jays. He threw seven scoreless innings in an 8-0 win on June 13, 2025. Monday offered a different test, against a Toronto lineup that started Myles Straw, Ernie Clement, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Kazuma Okamoto, Andrés Giménez, Eloy Jiménez, Jesús Sánchez, Davis Schneider and Tyler Heineman.
Toronto countered with right-hander Dylan Cease, who had matched a season-high with 12 strikeouts in his last start at the Angels. Cease was 1-2 with a 6.04 ERA in six starts against Boston, and the Blue Jays entered with a 4.45 ERA that ranked 11th in the American League. The Red Sox, meanwhile, came in on a two-game winning streak and had homered in a season-high four consecutive games, a sign that their offense had at least carried enough force to survive the upheaval in the dugout.
Boston’s lineup included Jarren Duran, Willson Contreras, Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu, Trevor Story, Marcelo Mayer, Ceddanne Rafaela, Carlos Narváez and Caleb Durbin. The Blue Jays also had a notable name of their own in Kazuma Okamoto, who signed a four-year, $60 million contract after a decade in Japan and homered twice against Cleveland. Both clubs arrived in Toronto with reasons to believe they could keep moving, but the Red Sox had the far bigger question hanging over them: whether a new manager can calm a club that changed course before this series even started.