But Cora won’t let that cloud what he feels he needs to do with Martinez to keep him fresh and upright through October. Martinez, who has an outside shot at the Triple Crown. Cora wants to make sure Betts (sore side) is 100 percent, while giving him time to amass the stats needed to win the MVP award - but not at the expense of the team concept he’s been trying to perpetuate all season. You’re likely to see the same approach the Astros had last year at this time of the season. He knows that at some point he will need to get his regular lineup out there so there’s some continuity heading into the playoffs. It appears he’ll accelerate with some and decelerate with others. Look at the lineup he lost with Tuesday night where he started with Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi on the bench: Brandon Phillips at third, Eduardo Nunez as the DH, and Brock Holt in left field.Ĭora has said he feels confident even when he throws the extras out there, and, for the most part, he’s been proven right. Cora is very big on resting his veterans. We’ve seen in these parts over the years after their three championships the perils of backing in to the playoffs. Much of Cora’s pregame chat with the media was geared toward how he would handle the team the rest of the way, if they clinched. We were all expecting to write the Red Sox division-clinching celebration with the champagne flying all over the place, but the bubbly was put on hold for another night. “We’re going to discuss that this week,” Cora said about Eovaldi’s role. We had penciled Eovaldi in as a bullpen piece, but now we’re wondering does Eovaldi stay in the rotation to give the Red Sox a good option against a predominantly righthanded-hitting Yankee lineup? Does Eduardo Rodriguez go the bullpen instead? Of course E-Rod also pitches well against the Yankees (4-3, 3.16 ERA). He wasn’t his usual 100 miles per hour, but seemed to be in more control at 95-97 m.p.h. The good news is the Red Sox got a pleasant start out of Nathan Eovaldi, who went six innings and allowed two hits and walked two. “Once we get healthy, we’ll be fine ,” Sox manager Alex Cora said after the loss, referring to the impending return of set-up man Matt Barnes. And we can say that fixing the bullpen is very much on the to-do list for Alex Cora. The Magic Number for homefield advantage remained at 4 (a combination of Sox wins and Astros losses).
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