Rookie manager Cora leads Sox to title
LOS ANGELES Hard to believe now, all these wins later, but the Alex Cora Era in Boston began with a loss. A brutal one, in fact.
Opening day at Tropicana Field in late March, none of his late moves worked out as the bullpen blew a big lead in a 6-4 setback.
No fan in New England would admit it now — still, chances are some had already started to wonder whether he was the right guy for the Red Sox.
“It’s baseball,” Cora reassured that afternoon. “We know it’s going to happen . ... I guess get it out of the way right away.” Yep, guess so. A calming presence in a boiling sports cauldron, Cora capped off one of the greatest runs by a firstyear skipper in leading Boston to the World Series championship.
His Cora-nation came Sunday night, when the Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in Game 5.
The victory set off celebrations all over.
While throngs of Red Sox fans rooted from the seats and so many more reveled across the country, all of Puerto Rico certainly cheered its native son from Caguas.
Cora became the first manager from the island to guide a team to a championship. Freese on his first pitch, then allowed just two more hits — the last a triple to Freese that Martinez lost in the thirdinning twilight and allowed to drop behind him in right. Price struck out five and walked two, retiring 14 in a row before a leadoff walk to Chris Taylor in the eighth ended his night after 89 pitches. He tapped his heart several times to Red Sox fans behind the first base dugout while walking to the bench.
Joe Kelly struck out three straight pinch hitters and Sale, originally scheduled to start Game 5, fanned three more in the ninth. Sale ended by throwing a slider past Manny Machado, a meagre 4 for 22 (.182) in the Series, and raised both arms as catcher Christian Vazquez ran out to jump on him with glee and teammates from the dugout and bullpens followed.
While Price rewrote his own legacy, Kershaw was unable to change his. He dropped to 1-4 with a 6.06 ERA in postseason elimination games. Plagued at times by an aching back, the 30-year-old lefty no longer is the dominant pitcher who won three Cy Young Awards, his famous 12-to-6 breaking ball now more 10 to 4:30.
Kershaw allowed four runs and seven hits — three of them homers — in seven innings. He is 9-10 with a 4.32 ERA in 30 post-season appearances, a huge drop from his 153-69 record and 2.39 ERA during the regular season.
He began aggressively, throwing strikes on his first six pitches, and the Red Sox were ready.
Andrew Benintendi hit a one-out single and Pearce pulled a fastball over the middle of the plate and sent it 405 feet into the left-field pavilion.
While the crowd of 54,367 for Dodger Stadium’s final game this year was stunned, Freese woke up fans in the bottom half. He drove Price’s first pitch 402 feet to the opposite field and into the right field pavilion.
Betts homered on a slider that stayed in the strike zone after going 0 for 13 in Los Angeles this weekend, the first postseason home run of his career coming in his 87th at-bat. Martinez homered in the seventh, driving a fastball to straightway centre.