What does Alex Cora think of the recent performance from his #Redsox ? Does Cora deserve any blame? On players?
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00:00It is concerning this early in the season, though, to say that there's no pride in the jersey.
00:04Like, it's two weeks into the regular season, and we're talking about pride for playing for Boston.
00:10That's concerning to me.
00:11And that's on Alex Cora.
00:14Maybe they could go on the Blue Origin flight together.
00:16Maybe that gets some team bonding.
00:19Well, I don't know what you do.
00:20So, like, you tried to, I think you tried to get rid of Cassis, and you couldn't really get rid of Cassis.
00:26So, I don't know what.
00:27Nothing you could do with Devers.
00:28Well, I mean, well, I guess you could give Devers a run at third base if you want to try to get everybody.
00:38That will not happen, because they're not going to start engaging in that.
00:42If they do anything, they'd put Devers at first base, and then they can, you know, figure out the DH from there.
00:48But it is unbelievable that Devers, at this point of the season, has 30 strikeouts at, whatever it is, April 15th.
00:58But the biggest problem is the offense.
01:01It's not reliable.
01:02Like, even this past weekend in Chicago, the game they won, they put up three runs.
01:08Like, the offense has been abysmal.
01:10But that's a series that you should have swept.
01:13Of course.
01:14Never mind, you know, at least won the series.
01:18Yeah.
01:19Honestly, this is inexcusable.
01:22There is nothing, I mean, they are a far better team than the White Sox, and they are a better team than the Rays.
01:27If anything, they're close to even.
01:28They're not 15 runs better.
01:29Well, the good thing about it, or the only kind of, like, you know, potential light at the end of the tunnel, is that the division you're in stinks.
01:39Okay, but it's not going to stink all season long.
01:41Right, but you're not going to stink all season long.
01:43Okay.
01:44So, when you look at this team, and you go, all right, so where's their biggest issues on what, then, offensively?
01:54They're not able to get runs, right?
01:59So, they're hitting the ball, like, they have hits, but they just are leaving a lot of runners in scoring position.
02:05So, they're not scoring runs.
02:07When you start to look at, all right, will that ultimately change?
02:12I think that if you look at the track record of the Red Sox, their hitting generally ends up pretty good at the end of the season.
02:20And Brooksy told us it would take a bit.
02:21Yeah, and so, you've been fortunate that you're in a division that the rest of the teams haven't been playing well.
02:29If they were in the NL West, go look at those three teams, San Francisco, the Padres, and the Dodgers.
02:36If you were in a division like that, now you might be hitting the panic button.
02:40But because you're only two games out, there's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
02:46You brought up Will Middlebrooks, and he'll be with us Monday morning at the Capitol Grill.
02:50I will be interested to hear, because he's done it.
02:52He's been there.
02:53He's gone through a season.
02:54When you can legitimately, as Wiggy said, hit the panic button.
02:58Right.
02:59And maybe it's not in April at all.
03:01And I mentioned, I mentioned Papelbon saying that he doesn't judge until June 1st.
03:06And people in the Twitch chat were like, that's ridiculous, Greg.
03:08I'm just telling you what.
03:10Oh, remember Bill said you didn't.
03:11What somebody says who, what?
03:13Remember Bill said you didn't know what type of team you had until.
03:15Until December.
03:15Like Thanksgiving or something like that.
03:17Yeah.
03:17This is Eric from Lubbock, Texas.
03:20Hey, Eric.
03:21Yeah.
03:22Hey, team.
03:23Thanks for having me on.
03:24I look forward to hearing from you during the marathon.
03:26Yeah.
03:26What's up?
03:27Um, yeah, I think some of this does lie at AC's feet.
03:31This is not the first time in the last two or three years where the team can't field the
03:35ball.
03:36Um, you know, as a pitcher, when you go out there and you know, your defense behind you
03:40is poor, um, you, you start pressing, you start trying to be too fine.
03:45You also pitch away from contact.
03:47Um, we've had teams in the past couple of years that have always been up there and leading
03:51the league in errors, which is just fundamental baseball.
03:54And what is he preaching in the, you know, in the clubhouse?
03:57So that's one thing.
03:59Uh, I thought he handled the Devers Bregman thing pretty well, but it's not helping him
04:04right now.
04:04The Bregman's got four errors.
04:06Um, so I mean, he's got to get the guys, he's got a young team.
04:10He's got to get into them about playing fundamentals, especially in the field.
04:14We got to field the ball and that falls on a coach saying, this is, this is a point of
04:18pride and this is something that we're going to execute.
04:21And right now they're not doing that.
04:22And it's just sloppy out there and it's costing them.
04:26You're not going to win a world series in April, but you can lose it by not playing good
04:30baseball and falling so far behind that, uh, that you got too big on a hole to crawl
04:35out of.
04:36So y'all have a great marathon Monday.
04:38I got some friends running and, uh, I appreciate your show.
04:41You bring me some, uh, some energy down here in Lubbock.
04:43All right, Eric.
04:44Appreciate you listening down there.
04:45I, the one thing I disagree with Eric on though, is that Cora handled the Bregman Devers thing
04:51correctly because Wiggy and I have talked about this quite a bit, but when you go back
04:56to the beginning of spring training and when they got Bregman, that would have been the
04:59time to say, all right, Bregman, we're going to go with this guy.
05:01We're putting all of our eggs in his basket.
05:03And then you, maybe we would have seen a better Devers earlier on the, in the last two
05:08weeks.
05:09And maybe the focus for Bregman could have been all on third base and there wouldn't be any
05:13conversation about who's going to play that position.
05:17Did Bregman know behind the scenes that it was going to be him?
05:21Devers didn't participate at all during spring training.
05:23But clearly, before they even played a game, Devers had that press conference where he
05:27But clearly, clearly it's still an issue.
05:29I don't care what anybody says.
05:31It's an issue.
05:31Why?
05:31Because if Bregman is out there booting the ball, then you know Devers is pissed off about
05:37it.
05:37Of course he is.
05:38He, you know he is.
05:39And so that's probably playing into his mind and maybe that affects him at the plate.
05:42And then Bregman, he may boot the ball and go, well, I know this other guy over here
05:48is ticked off that I'm playing this position.
05:51And maybe that's in his mind a little bit where he's like, almost like he has to be perfect
05:56because he knows one of his teammates and basically the face of the franchise, how badly
06:01he wants that position.
06:03Yeah.
06:03And they give it to you.
06:05So to think that there's no issue, and there might not be an issue between the two of
06:11them, but to be, think that there's not an issue for Devers or even Bregman to be thinking
06:16about this stuff with the third base position, I would say you'd be, you'd be whistling past
06:21the grade.
06:22So what do they, how does that manifest itself though, Wig?
06:24So what happens?
06:25So they're, they're not playing well.
06:25How do they fix it?
06:26No, no.
06:27Like how does this, so you're saying Devers is unhappy, that's why he's striking out?
06:30So I think Devers looks at it and goes, wait a second.
06:33You know, this guy's booting the ball.
06:34He's got a bunch of errors.
06:35This is a position that I want to play.
06:37And now that plays into his mind because he's thinking about Bregman and the position
06:41he's not playing.
06:42And that affects him at home plate.
06:44And that adds salt to the wound because Wiggy said in the beginning, how many more errors
06:48did Bregman have or that Devers have than Bregman last season?
06:51So then there you go.
06:52It was, it was, that was probably brought up before the season to Cora.
06:56Do you think there was a single guy on the team, not named Devers, that thinks Bregman shouldn't
07:00be playing third base?
07:01No, but I don't care what Tristan Cassis thinks.
07:02You don't care what Tristan Cassis thinks.
07:04So you're saying it's an issue on the team.
07:05And then if everybody agrees, we're saying it's an issue for Bregman and for Devers.
07:09Bregman's been hitting fine.
07:10He's been hitting far better than Devers.
07:12We're not talking about his hitting.
07:13We're talking about his fielding.
07:14Right.
07:15I mean, yeah.
07:15So it's just human nature to be thinking about those type of things.
07:20You don't think Bregman's thinking about like, all right, I have this position.
07:24This other guy who's a huge part of his organization wants it.
07:29And then maybe I boot a ball.
07:31You don't think he's thinking like in his mind, like, I got to be perfect.
07:33No, Bregman has been in the biggest spots imaginable and has thrived in those positions.
07:38So why is he so poor to start off the season?
07:41It was the cold weather until they got to Florida.
07:43It's the weather.
07:44Yeah.
07:45All right.
07:45And the jet lag.
07:46We got to take a break.
07:49It's certainly not the moment being too big for him.
07:51I didn't say the moment was too big for him.
07:54Yeah.
07:54There's a difference.
07:55Pressure has created better moments for him, not worse.
07:58It's not about the moment being too big for him.
08:01He's in a different spot that he's been in before where he has the face of the franchise
08:05upset that he's playing his position.
08:09The face of the franchise is the manager.
08:10The face of the franchise is the manager.