Worlds collide again
Red Sox open second half with Series rematch vs. LA
Here they go again. The Red Sox and Dodgers, two of the biggest teams in baseball, will begin the second half in opposite dugouts tonight at Fenway Park.
After managing against each other in a World Series that ended in just five games but was closer than that might suggest, Alex Cora and Dave Roberts faced off Tuesday in the All-Star Game.
Cora is the more decorated manager, given his 1-for-1 batting average as a big league skipper. But he’s only now facing adversity in this role for the first time.
Roberts has been here before. Over and over again.
The questions about his job security were fluid the last few years, including durbreak ing the 2018 World Series, when President Trump criticized Roberts’ for making a “big mistake!” in Game 4. The Dodgers have made it to the World Series back-toback years and lost both times. The best team in baseball at the break with a 60-32 record, Roberts’ crew risks becoming the Buffalo Bills of baseball with another World Series loss in 2019.
He was asked about it in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, when he said, “We feel it every day, but it’s something that’s not talked about. It’s like the best of all worlds. Because it’s forefront of mind, but it’s not talked about. But the work reflects it.”
Roberts was given a fouryear contract in the offseason.
On the other side, Cora, too, had his contract restructured for his benefit after the 2018 season.
But his team isn’t off to a blazing-fast start. The Red Sox don’t have three aces who made the All-Star team like the Dodgers do in Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler and Hyun-Jin Ryu. The Red Sox don’t have a 23year-old MVP front-runner like the Dodgers do in Cody Bellinger.
The Red Sox have a lot to prove in the second half.
They come out of the winners of five of the last six, but 49-41 on the season. The Dodgers have cooled off, losing three in a row and seven of their last 13.
The oddsmakers still like Los Angeles: the Dodgers are favorites to win the World Series, with +270 betting odds (bet $100 to win $270), per Bovada. The Red Sox are long shots at +2500.
“We’re a lot better than this,” Cora said Sunday. “We are. We need to get better. We need to get better. There’s a few things here that, although we finished strong and all that, they know it. They know it as a group. We have to be ready for Friday, and then we play 34 in 34 days after that, and we start with the Dodgers right away. It should be fun over the weekend. But I think we can be a lot better than this.”
The Red Sox may have the weapons to neutralize the potent Dodgers offense.
Their biggest bats in Bellinger and Joc Pederson are left-handed hitters who clobber right-handed pitchers. As a team, their OPS against lefties is .787 compared with .818 vs. righties. Neither number is anything but stellar, but there is hope the Sox can limit the Dodgers bats by throwing three lefties in this series.
And that’s what the Sox will do, sending Eduardo Rodriguez, David Price and Chris Sale to the mound, in that order, to try to get their team off to a hot start in the second half.
The Sox are just 17-25 against teams .500 or better this year.
“It’s crunch time for us right now,” Price said before the break. “Enjoy these next four days off and come back and ready to play against whoever we’re playing against. The Dodgers. All right.”
The Dodgers hit just .180 with a .550 OPS against the Red Sox in the World Series a year ago. A lot has changed since then, with the Red Sox admitting their attack plan as a pitching staff might need some adjustments as the rest of the league has caught on.
It all starts tonight, with a World Series rematch at Fenway that can shape the Red Sox’ season.