Alex Cora lines up his starters: Sale, Price, Porcello ... and then what?

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The announcement by Alex Cora, delivered almost off-handedly in the middle of a routine postgame press conference, was the very essence of anti-climactic: Chris Sale, David Price and Rick Porcello, in that order, would pitch the first three regular-season games for the Red Sox.

For weeks, reporters had playfully asked Cora who he planned to pitch on Opening Day and the two games that followed. The answer had been obvious for some time and could be confirmed by a calendar, schedule and simple math, but Cora, ever-cautious, declined to make things official until Tuesday afternoon.

The Opening Day assignment will be the first for Sale as a member of the Red Sox. Porcello, coming off a Cy Young Award the previous season, was last year’s Opening Day choice.

The sequence also means Price will pitch the home opener on April 5, also against Tampa Bay.

Now, comes the tricky part.

If lining up Sale, Price and Porcello was a slam-dunk, there’s considerably less certitude when it comes to determining who follows them the next two days.

Thanks to a variety of injuries, the Red Sox are still trying to figure that out.

They have no shortage of potential candidates – five, in total – but no concrete answers for now. In a perfect world, the Sox would choose two from among Eduardo Rodriguez, Steven Wright and Drew Pomeranz.

But each pitcher still has physical issues with which to deal. Both Rodriguez and Wright are recovering from knee surgeries and Pomeranz’s spring has been upended by a minor flexor strain, suffered two-and-a-half weeks ago.

Those question marks have kept Brian Johnson, and, nominally, Hector Velazquez in the mix to grab the final two starting spots – however temporarily.

Rodriguez took a significant step forward Tuesday when he pitched 3.1 innings in a minor league game, allowing three runs on five hits (two homers) with three strikeouts and a walk. Rodriguez has demonstrated that his surgically-repaired knee is sound, but there are other things the Red Sox want to see.

“Now it’s more about mechanics and his extension,’’ said Cora. “I mentioned the other day, when he gets that extension, his fastball really plays at 97 mph. When he doesn’t get extension, his fastball becomes flat and he becomes hittable. We don’t want the good version of Eduardo Rodriguez; we want the great one.’’

Rodriguez will pitch in another minor league game in four days. By keeping him out of major league games for now, the Red Sox will give themselves the luxury of back-dating him on the DL for the maximum amount of time when the season begins.

Both Wright and Pomeranz have outings scheduled for later in the week. Of the two, Wright would seem to be closest to being able to take his first start, though that again could be compromised by any discipline handed down by the commissioner’s office relating to Wright’s December arrest for domestic assault.

For now, Johnson is ahead of Velazquez.

“Right now, it looks like (Johnson) is one of the four (scheduled to start against Tampa Bay),’’ said Cora. “It all depends where we go and where everybody else is. We’ll decide at the end of the week, and take a look at matchups and see where he matches up better – if it’s the Rays or the Marlins (the Sox play a two-game set in Miami on April 2-3 after Tampa).

"Right now, with everything that’s going on, obviously we’re leaving the door open for the other guys (Pomeranz, Rodriguez and Wright), but we have to extend (Johnson) and keep him in the plan. We have to wait and see with the health of the other ones, but we’re running out of time.’’

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