Starting offers pour in
Cora: Sox are all-in
LOS ANGELES — Pitchers were knocking on Alex Cora’s door trying to offer their services for Game 4 last night. Among them: Eduardo Rodriguez, Chris Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello and Nathan Eovaldi. Rodriguez was the choice rather than using Sale on shorter rest, but Cora said the Red Sox were all-in last night despite using 23 of their 25 players in an 18-inning loss to the Dodgers in Game 3. “The only guy that’s not available is Nate (Eovaldi),” Cora said. “We still got Drew (Pomeranz) and the righties all lined up. Somebody will come in and say, ‘I want to pitch today,’ and we’ll see where we go. “There were two big lefties (Sale and David Price) that wanted to pitch tonight . ... We’ve still got a game tomorrow, and we’ve still got a Game 6. They’ll be lined up. We’ll see how it goes today. And we have a chance to win it again and we’ll see how we manage.” Ultimately, Cora decided Sale would not be available out of the bullpen and would be saved to start Game 5 tonight on normal rest. Price recorded two outs of relief in Game 3 just two days after throwing 88 pitches in Game 2, but said he wanted to pitch again in Game 4. “David and Chris, they both came up to me last night and even Rick Porcello,” Cora said. Porcello threw 61 pitches in Game 3. “At this point, they really don’t care,” Cora said. “They want to win and you saw the stuff he showed yesterday, David. That was impressive. Obviously, Nate, that was amazing. It was fun to watch, his stuff was unreal. But David was throwing 95, 96 mph. He executed some pitches, after the game he stayed here with Nate and got some treatment just to get ready for tonight.” Keep heads up After all the emotion of the Game 3 loss, when at least two Red Sox players were crying, Cora said the team hadn’t lost any hope going into Game 4. “It’s just another day,” he said. “For whatever people think, that it’s a crushing loss and whatever, we’re still up 2-1 in the series. I got a text from a good friend of mine, manager in the big leagues, he’s like, ‘It took 18 innings to get one win against you guys.’ I’m like, ‘Good point brother!’ So it was a great game.” Betts scuffles Mookie Betts was 0-for-7 in Game 3, and it looked like the likely American League MVP was lost at the plate. “He’s jumping out there,” Cora said. “He’s not staying back. There was one at-bat, actually it was a good at-bat and it was a borderline pitch and it was strike three. He’s actually not attacking pitches in the zone. I don’t know if it’s by design or sometimes he doesn’t feel good and he feels attacking pitches right away doesn’t make sense. “It’s trying to stay in the zone. They walked him and they pitched him on the edges of the strike zone. Just stay disciplined. But it seems like he’s a little bit anxious, like jumpy, instead of tracking the ball back, he’s trying to get it out there.” ... Xander Bogaerts was 0-for-8 and appeared to be limping, but Cora said that was just a cramp and the shortstop has dealt with it before. He was back in the lineup for Game 4. “Xander yesterday, he was chasing pitches,” Cora said. “It was a tough spot for him at one point because he had the pitcher behind him. I talked to him, I say, ‘just get back to being the hitter.’” ... Eduardo Nunez got treatment on his injured ankle and was back in the lineup. No JBJ With left-hander Rich Hill starting for the Dodgers, Andrew Benintendi got the start ahead of Jackie Bradley Jr., who hit the game-tying home run in the eighth inning of Game 3. “It’s matchup-related,” Cora said. “He put up good at-bats against lefties early in the World Series. We feel that it’s a better matchup. And then we got Jackie for the hard throwers later on.” That moved Betts to center field and put Benintendi in left with J.D. Martinez in right. The Sox were swapping Martinez, Bradley and Betts back and forth between left, center and right in Game 3 because they wanted to have their best defenders in left and center when pull-hitting right-handed hitters were up. “We were talking about it in the game, starting with (Manny) Machado,” Cora said. “He’s going to pull the ball. Jackie has the best arm, Mookie does too. If he goes the other way, it’s by accident. It seems like he’s in pull mode.” In Machado’s last two atbats, the outfield didn’t change. Cora said he was probably thinking about something else at the time and didn’t think to change it up again.
Bad track
The playing surface was in question on Saturday, one day after Ian Kinsler got his foot caught in the grass on his way to making a throwing error that cost the Red Sox a chance at the final out. “It doesn’t look great, and when I played here, it was like the best surface in the big leagues,” Cora said. “I don’t know if it’s October or whatever, but you can see the grass kind of like, it’s kind of soft. I know Ian slipped on it, but if you look at it, even batting practice, it’s kind of loose.”