Cora keeps team hungry for more
TORONTO — If this run of never-before-seen, historic and let’s just call it epic proportions that the Red Sox are on has you worried that there’s way too much time for something to go south, then congratulations, you’re a Red Sox fan.
But fret not.
Manager Alex Cora has got you covered.
He’s keeping the Red Sox on their toes.
He’s making sure they stay hungry.
He’s got them keeping their focus not only on the daily task but also on the big kahuna of winning the World Series.
It’s a tricky balancing act.
And to keep everybody centered in order to continue to win games at the current incredible clip, Cora is using all his wiles.
“Sometimes I mess around with them and we talk about last year,” Cora said with a mischievous smile yesterday, referencing 2017 when the Astros, for whom he was the bench coach, eliminated the Red Sox en route to winning the World Series. “We talk about the series and certain things that happened. I don’t know if I like get ‘into’ them, but they know I was there last year and I know how much fun it was. And at the same time they were there (in the playoffs) the last two years and it didn’t happen.”
So in the midst of all this winning, Cora is dishing out reminders that the team hasn’t accomplished anything yet.
“I do feel that regardless of what’s going on, they’re still looking ahead,” Cora said. “They’ve got something more than winning at this pace. It’s right there — not too far ahead. They’re doing an outstanding job. It’s amazing.”
With the Red Sox carrying an 81-34 record — a 114-win pace — into last night’s game against the Blue Jays, talk has gone far beyond the near certainty that they will crack the 100-win mark for the first time since 1946. Speculation is growing that this could be one of the best teams ever. If they keep winning at their post-All-Star clip (13-4), surpassing the 2001 Mariners’ 116-win record is possible. The notion makes Cora laugh. He has at the ready the factoid that the Dodgers held a better record at a later stage of last season — 91-36 on Aug. 22 — and proceeded to lose 16 of their next 17 games, including an 11-game losing streak at the start of September. They finished with 104 wins, which is still good, and took the Astros to Game 7 of the World Series.
And he remembers the Indians had a 22-game winning streak from late August to mid-September a year ago.
The Astros, Dodgers and Indians all finished with more than 100 wins. Only one of them won it all.
The Red Sox are hot now, and Cora wants to keep their flame on high.
There is no such thing in his mind as “peaking too soon.”
“The Dodgers were one game away from winning, Cleveland, they were up 2-0 in the playoffs — I don’t know, I don’t believe in that,” Cora said. “It’s just a matter of us keeping it in perspective and not get caught up in the whole thing. I think Cleveland did an outstanding job last year but it seems like toward the end, it was very emotional those games. Don’t get me wrong — I’ll take 22 (wins) in a row any day of the week but we have to be careful too as far as chasing wins. There’s games that we’re going to be down three and we know we can come back offensively but we have to make sure we keep these guys in check, the pitching side of it. If we start chasing wins, then we’re going to lose our footing, so we have to be careful about that.”
Careful, without complacency. It’s the formula Cora wants and it’s what he has.
He doesn’t want to change a thing. “Within my baseball circle, the one I have with my family and friends, that’s what probably impresses them the most — it seems like these guys, they don’t care, it’s ‘We’re showing up today and we’re playing,’ it seems that way from afar,” Cora said. “I know what we have here. I know how they operate, I know how much pride they have and I think that pushes them to be the players they are. They want to be great. Their willingness to keep working, and be better is what is going to keep us playing good baseball.”
In case what happened last year doesn’t offer enough evidence that Cora has the Red Sox’ heads on straight, consider what’s already happened this season. Even before the Red Sox finished their 17-2 run, the Yankees went on their own 17-2 tear. When it ended, the Yankees were a game up on the Red Sox.
To have the Yankees nine games behind the Red Sox with 47 games to go doesn’t feel that comfortable to Cora.
“For what everybody is saying, that team that is behind us, they’re good, they’re going to have their run, we feel that way — if we start taking this for granted, you never know what can happen,” Cora said. “We went through it already. We learned from that. It’s not like we backed down but we just played .500 baseball for a while and they didn’t. All of a sudden they were right there.”