Boston ready for fresh start after chaotic year

Manager Cora returns after exile for role in sign-stealing scheme

There’s no team in baseball more eager to forget the 2020 season than the Boston Red Sox.

With manager Alex Cora exiled for his role in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scheme and Mookie Betts sent west in a luxury tax reset, the Red Sox limped to a last-place finish in the pandemicshortened season.

Ace Chris Sale (Tommy John surgery) and No. 2 pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez (COVID-19 damage to his heart muscles) never got on a mound. Slugger J.D. Martinez, an MVP candidate the previous two years, slumped his way to a .213 average, and third baseman Rafael Devers (14 errors in 57 games) fumbled the ball all year.

“As a team, obviously, we know what happened last year,” Cora said from the Red Sox spring training complex in Fort Myers, Florida, as he tried to get the team ready for the season.

“There’s a lot of people here that weren’t here,” he said. “I have to turn the page too, right? I’ve got to keep moving forward. If it’s hard for them to turn the page from last year ... Hey, look at me and the way I’m going about my business. If they (want to) forget about that, they can look at me and do the same.”

The Red Sox have won it all twice in the past eight seasons, but they’ve also finished last four times in a decade of see-saw results while churning through five managers. Cora, who led the 2018 team to a franchise-record 108 regular-season wins and a World

Series title, was ousted after an MLB investigation identified him as the ringleader in Houston’s cheating scandal.

Bench coach Ron Roenicke took his place in 2020, but never really had a chance after Betts and David Price were traded to the Dodgers in a spring training salary dump. The Red Sox finished 24-36; Roenicke was out, and Cora was back.

This year’s team still has Xander Bogaerts at shortstop, Martinez and Devers trying to bounce back from off years, and the hope that Sale will return by midseason to lead a rotation that looks a lot better if he and Rodríguez are starting every fifth day.

In the rotation

Sale and Rodríguez were the likely top two starters before missing the entire season. They will go to the head of a rotation that also includes Martín Pérez, Nathan Eovaldi and newcomer Garrett Richards. Until Sale returns, Nick Pivetta, who pitched well after coming over to the AL midseason, will have a spot as well.

New look

The outfield of Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Andrew Benintendi that led Boston to the 2018 World Series title is no more. In their place could be Hunter Renfroe, Alex Verdugo and Marwin González — at least until Franchy Cordero is cleared to play after starting spring training late due to COVID-19 protocols. Enrique Hernández starts at second after years of stopgaps since Dustin Pedroia was injured in 2017.

Closing it out

Matt Barnes, who earned nine saves last season as the de facto closer, will vie with ex-yankee Adam Ottavino for the closer’s job. Hirokazu Sawamura and lefthander Darwinzon Hernández will also fill key bullpen roles and could wind up finishing games if the others falter.