Alex Cora spent the previous season on the sideline following a suspension for his part at the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. Now, sitting in his supervisor’s seat with all the Boston Red Sox following the group gave him another opportunity to direct, Cora is massaging in each minute of return in spring training.
“That is really where I wanted to be. That is where I am in,” Cora said . “I really like every moment of it, and I am not likely to take it for granted”
After Boston fired Cora following the unraveling of the Astros’ trash-can banging strategy, many Red Sox players voiced disappointment that Cora wouldn’t more be their supervisor.
“He is a person that we all loved playing , and that I loved to sit and have a wonderful talk with him, baseball-wise,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts stated last January. “He will be someone we will miss a whole lot, me particularly.”
When there was uncertainty about if the Red Sox clubhouse would adopt Cora following the fallout of this sign-stealing scandal, these questions were immediately answered from the first days of spring training.
“You know what we travelled through, winning the World Series at 2018, I feel glad he’s back,” pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez explained. “He is like a dad, like a brother. Sometimes I feel as a teammate once I speak with him, and that is a part of this connection that we have collectively and we could make it simpler. We’ll make it simpler.”
About the Red Sox clubhouse, Sale is popularly referred to as a leadership figure that attracts an old-school approach into the match (frequently seen sporting an”All me, PED complimentary” T-shirt) and does not talk in clichés.
“He needs to win, he does what to better himself, the training team, the group, the company,” Sale said. “Having the ability to get that confidence from the captain, he is the man running the show, he is the man putting the lineups upward, he is doing pitching changes and with that confidence in knowing that he has got your back into the end.”
This season, Cora attracts a year’s value of pent enthusiasm and excitement about baseball he was not able to channel whilst viewing games from his sofa rather than the dugout, something that he expects can help Boston prevent a repeat of 2020’s last-place ending in the American League East.
“I am going to get it the exact same way I have done it ’18 and’19,” Cora said. “Confident, with certainty, and seeking to put these men in scenarios to be prosperous. This is how I understand how to perform it.
