The Boston Red Sox were thumped 10-1 by the Baltimore Orioles on Friday, another hard night in a miserable start to the season. Afterward, Alex Cora did not duck the damage. He said the clubhouse is full of players still learning the game, and that it is his job to keep teaching them.
“We got a bunch of kids that are learning the game, it’s my job to keep teaching them the game,” Cora said after the loss.
The line landed in the middle of a frustrating stretch for Boston, which has been trying to steady itself while the losses pile up. The manager has won before in Boston, and that matters because his voice still carries weight inside a season that has started badly and loudly.
But Cora’s explanation also cuts against the shape of the roster. The Red Sox do have some younger players, including marcelo mayer, yet the group is not built only around kids. The core includes players entering their prime, and much of the supporting cast is already in its 30s. Boston also added veteran pieces in the offseason, including Willson Contreras, Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez, which makes the learning-curve explanation harder to sell on its own.
That is where the tension sits. Cora is trying to frame the season as a process, but the club’s decisions point to a team that expected more immediate competence than a roster of apprentices usually provides. The article says moving on from Cora was a decision by Sam Kennedy and Craig Breslow, and that leaves Boston’s next steps tied not only to the manager’s message, but to the people who chose the direction in the first place.
For now, the Red Sox are left with the same problem they had before Friday’s loss: they need wins fast, and they need them from a roster that was not supposed to look this unfinished.