BOSTON — After two consecutive trade deadlines that he found to be disappointing, Boston Red Sox Manager Alex Cora is hoping history doesn’t repeat itself for a third time.
With the Red Sox six games above .500 and in possession of the third and final American League wild-card spot as the midpoint of their season approaches, there’s a lot to play for in the coming weeks. With less than five weeks before the July 30 trade deadline, the players will likely dictate Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow’s course of action with how they play in the coming stretch.
Cora, who reaped the benefits of buying at the deadline both in 2018 (Steve Pearce and Nathan Eovaldi) and 2021 (Kyle Schwarber), was among many in uniform who were not thrilled with how ex-chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom approached his final two deadlines. In 2022, the Sox both bought and sold, unloading Christian Vázquez and Jake Diekman while adding Eric Hosmer, Reese McGuire and Tommy Pham. Last year brought two minor moves – a deal that sent Kiké Hernández to the Dodgers after he lost his roster spot, and the small addition of second baseman Luis Urías.
Under Breslow, Cora wants the Red Sox to keep pushing by adding, rather than trading away pending free agents like Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin, Tyler O’Neill and Nick Pivetta.
“Honestly, we didn’t get better,” Cora said of the past two deadlines. “We just stayed the same, and the teams around us got better. I can walk you through the trading deadline the way I see it. There’s three ways you can go. You buy, you sell, you stay put. When you stay put, there’s going to be teams that, they added, and they’re going to be better than you. It’s not that your team was a bad team, but the other ones around you got better.
“We didn’t have more. We’ll see what happens in a month or month and a half. We just need to keep playing better baseball. I know we’ve been talking about the wild card and all that stuff. Eh. Let’s get greedy. There’s teams ahead of us that are not playing good baseball. I know, probably, one of them, it’s only for five days. But there’s more out there. I think this brand of baseball, we can maintain the way we’re playing … Let’s not settle for the third wild card. Let’s go higher and see where the season takes us.”
The Red Sox hovered around contention for much of last summer, but Bloom ultimately determined – citing playoff odds – that the chances of making a run were not good enough to sacrifice part of the future for additions. He also, after significant clubhouse turmoil following the Vázquez trade in 2022, seemed to not want to anger his team by dealing veterans on expiring contracts like Justin Turner, James Paxton and Adam Duvall. Bloom’s decision to label his team “underdogs” because its playoff odds had dipped under 25% due to three straight losses before the deadline seemed to anger some in the clubhouse. Cora and some coaches wore shirts depicting the “Underdog” cartoon in the weeks after the deadline, and Bloom was not in on the joke.
Cora thinks this year’s Red Sox, who are younger than previous editions, will not have similar problems. He hopes a team that has won 10 of its last 13 games can continue playing well and force Breslow into buying.
“I’ve managed enough,” Cora said. “I think this is a different group, a group that’s establishing itself as big leaguers. So the bitching and moaning of trades or no trades, I don’t think it’s going to happen this year. They’re in a good place right now. We’ve got a bunch of athletes and we’re gonna keep going. I learned over the offseason that there’s no excuses, from injuries to the trading deadline or whatever. That’s the attitude we’ve taken from Day 1. It’s not gonna change.
“I don’t think this group worries too much about stuff. Obviously, we’re a long ways from that. But we have confidence in what we’re doing. We’re playing good baseball. We’re going to keep playing good baseball. And we’ve still got plenty of time.”
WORKING WITH BELLO: On a vastly improved pitching staff, Brayan Bello has been the lone Red Sox starter who isn’t pitching to his capability.
His 5.50 ERA is easily the highest in the rotation. His truncated start Tuesday, which lasted just 2 1/3 innings, was the team’s shortest by a non-opener this season. And over the last seven weeks, Bello’s ERA is a bloated 7.49.
In response, the Red Sox announced that they would be pushing back Bello’s next start from Sunday – the final game of the current homestand – to Wednesday, the second game of the team’s two-city road trip. Josh Winckowski, who was stretched out as a depth starter at Triple-A Worcester and provided six innings in relief of Bello on Tuesday, will start Sunday against San Diego.
“We’re giving him a breather,” said Manager Alex Cora. “There’s a few things that we’ve recognized that we have to be better. He’s recognized what the problem is, and now we have to solve it.”
Still, the Red Sox aren’t close to giving up on Bello.
“The stuff is good, stuff is quality,” said pitching coach Andrew Bailey. “In some areas, it’s even better than last year. I think it gets back to command, consistency, being ahead in counts.
Bailey and Cora have emphasized the need for Bello to trust his stuff more, and to not be afraid to throw his best pitches in the strike zone. Still a young pitcher, Bello has, somewhat predictably, gotten somewhat gun-shy when teams have squared him up.
“As pitchers,” said Bailey, “we have this innate response when we’re finding barrels and getting hit, and that’s to try to be a little more picky. That leads to falling behind in counts even more.”
That pattern has been repeated often, including the third inning Tuesday. With the Red Sox leading 2-0, Bello began to flounder, and the Jays had seven hitters in the span of eight reach base. Bello couldn’t seem to limit the damage, and failure to get ahead of the Toronto hitters was a big factor.
“Moral of the story is that we just have to throw more strikes and be in pitchers’ counts more often,” summarized Bailey.
By pushing Bello’s next start back to Wednesday, the Red Sox will not only gain additional time to have Bello look at video and work some mechanical issues, but also provide him with a bit of mental break from his struggles.
Cora spoke with Bello on Wednesday and reiterated the team’s belief in him.
“I told him, ‘We are where we’re at and you haven’t performed,’ “ said Cora. “ ‘But you’ll get going and it should be fun the rest of the way.’ “
HENDRIKS THROWS: Wednesday marked an important, albeit somewhat minor step in Liam Hendriks’ path back to a major league mound.
Hendriks, who has not pitched this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery while a member of the White Sox last August, threw off a mound for the first time since surgery, recording a 15-pitch session in the home bullpen at Fenway Park. The three-time All-Star is still a ways away from pitching in game action but is now at least at a point where he can start to taste a return.
“Once you get on the mound, once you get on the slope,” Hendriks said, “it adds a little bit more stress to it, and that’s what we’re trying to do.
“It was nice to get off there and slowly, drastically improve. But it’s still a pain … I wish it would go quicker.”
The impatient Hendriks, who was limited to just five innings in 2023 after beating Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, has worked tirelessly with Red Sox trainers to get back to the mound since joining the club on a two-year, $10 million contract in mid-February. He has been throwing on flat ground since spring training. Despite the lack of setbacks, Hendriks isn’t yet satisfied with his rehab, purely because of the monotonous nature of the work he has done.
“How boring it is, how tedious it is (has surprised me),” Hendriks said. “I love the monotony of baseball, but this has been doing my head in, not being able to go out there when I feel like doing more, and I’m not allowed to. That kind of sucks. … I’m not a very patient person when it comes to baseball activities. Going through this process has been a struggle.”
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