Anywho lineup gets 105
Sale solid as Sox tie win mark
RED SOX NOTEBOOK
CLEVELAND — The Red Sox just can’t not catch a break.
In a game in which they used their best starter for fewer than four innings and a spring training lineup featuring just one regular, the Sox still were able to rally for a 7-5 victory last night against the AL Central champion Indians in the first game of a three-game series.
Two Red Sox hit their first big league home runs — Sam Travis and Tzu-Wei Lin — with Travis knocking in three runs in all.
Lin knocked in two runs, his first the game-winning go-ahead RBI single in the seventh, and Rafael Devers homered and also knocked in two runs.
The victory tied the Red Sox’ franchise record for wins at 105 with eight games to go. The victory also reduced their magic number to 1 for clinching home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs. Another victory or Astros loss is needed.
The Sox opened with Chris Sale, who pitched pretty well, although not up to Cy Young standards. In his 31⁄3 innings and 73 pitches, Sale allowed two runs on five hits.
And by using Hector Velazquez in the eighth inning, the Red Sox burnt their scheduled Sunday starter. William Cuevas appears to be a good candidate to throw in Velazquez’ place tomorrow night.
Cora rejoices
Plenty of coffee was on hand in the visitors clubhouse for the bleary-eyed Sox the day after their latenight clinch and celebration of the AL East in New York the night before.
Lots of smiles, too, especially from a relieved looking manager Alex Cora, who is overseeing a special season in his very first year.
“My daughter, she facetimed with Mookie (Betts) and her reaction was amazing. It was 11:30 at night so she needed to go to bed, but it was fun, it was fun,” Cora said. “Talking to my mom, (brother) Joey called me today, that was cool.”
Cora watched the Red Sox clinch on the field from the sidelines.
“I was watching and it’s like — I’m not old, I’m 42 — but the proud father, you know?” said Cora. “Just looking from afar at their reactions. Seeing David (Price) acknowledging the fans. That was cool to see. He actually kind of like applauded them, the fans that we had. It was a special night. Full circle. I still remember walking into that (Red Sox hotel) suite (in New York during the NLCS last year) with all those baseball guys and in the beginning I was a little bit intimidated but at the end I was like, yeah, I felt very comfortable.
“To be able to do it in New York, it was very special.”
Cora spoke with Arizona general manager Mike Hazen, who interviewed Cora before the 2017 season but gave the job to Torey Lovullo .
“After the Diamondbacks interview, he told me, ‘Hey, man. Get to the field and it’s going to happen,’ ” Cora said. “I joked with him, too. I told him, ‘You thought I was going to gain experience from San Juan to Arizona?’ But, he told me that, so I called him. I talked to him a little bit.”
He also spoke with Texas GM Jon Daniels, who fired his manager, Jeff Banister, yesterday. Daniels was the first GM to interview and “kind of open the door,” Cora said. “This is a process. Sometimes it’s a frustrating one as far as the interviews and all of that. There’s some of them that you feel that they’re not real interviews. But you’ve got to go through the process. We’ve lived it throughout the family. I know how it works. But he was the first one. I texted him. He was very happy that this had happened.”
Cora reiterated the Sox were always his first choice.
“Nothing against the other organizations because if they would have offered me something, then, hey, I’d have to take it,” Cora said. “But I think here kind of like was the perfect fit. When (president of baseball operations) Dave (Dombrowski) called me right away it was ‘yeah let’s go.’ ”
Wright looks good
The Sox were not planning to use relievers Craig Kimbrel, Ryan Brasier or Steven Wright in this series, although Kimbrel came on to record his 42nd save.
Wright went three scoreless innings Thursday after receiving medical clearance for the third. He may be a cog in playoff bullpen plans.
“You can see it with him, the confidence is building up. He looks a lot better,” said Cora. “He looked great for three, so we’ll keep working on it, see how he feels today, how he reacts, how he recovers and we’ll go from there.”
Bogaerts gets rest
Xander Bogaerts will be played sparingly down the stretch but like with Betts, who is two stolen bases shy of 30, Cora wants to give Bogaerts a chance to get five more RBI and reach 100.
“He’s been playing a lot and you guys know how I feel about him as far as how big and physical he is playing that position. We’ll take care of him and at the same time, I want him to get 100 RBI,” the manager said. “I know he hasn’t talked about it but I know that will be cool for him to accomplish that, and I’m not going to get in the way of that. He’ll play, he’ll get that, I know he will, but we’ll take care of it too.”
Swihart may catch
Cora may yet start Blake Swihart at catcher again.
“We feel comfortable with Sandy (Leon), Christian (Vazquez) and Blake,” he said. “One thing for sure, he’ll catch throughout the week. We were thinking about it today, but then, it’s five innings. It’s Chris (Sale). For how bad we want Blake to catch him, but it’s an important start for Chris. And I’m not saying not using Blake makes more sense for us, but we know where we’re going with Chris, so we want Sandy back there. So we’ll see how it goes.”
Swihart was in right field last night and went 1-for-3.