McAdam: In first postseason as a manager, Alex Cora pushing all the right buttons

Insanity, someone once said, is the practice is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Whatever Alex Cora is doing this October is precisely the opposite of that.

No matter what decision the Red Sox manager makes, the expectation is that it will somehow work. Like lineup choices. Like bullpen moves. Like in-game decisions.

In another era, baseball managers would trust their gut. They'd get "a feeling,'' and make a move that might appear counterintuitive and -- wouldn't you know it? -- it would all work out.

But in 2018, very little happens by accident. There are reams of data to consider, and managers ignore the information they have at their own peril.

So, please, don't call it luck or fate or instinct. Quite literally, Cora knows what he's doing and more specifically, why he's doing it. It's just that, this month, he's batting average is uncanny.

Case in point: Tuesday night 8-4 win for the Red Sox over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the World Series.

It might have made sense for Cora to have Eduardo Nunez in the starting lineup against Dodgers ace lefty Clayton Kershaw. Instead, Cora went with the lefthanded Rafael Devers, and got a walk and an RBI single out of Devers in his first three plate appearances.

But it wasn't just that Cora decided to go with Devers. He also told Nunez that he had a plan for him, too.

"We talked early today,'' said Nunez. "He explained to me the situation -- lefty hitter going against Kershaw. (But he told me) to be prepared for the seventh, eighth inning, late in the game if they bring in a lefty for Devers. So that was the plan.''

Sure enough, in the seventh inning, with the Red Sox clinging to a one-run lead, 5-4, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called for lefty Alex Wood out of the bullpen. And sure enough, Nunez got the call to pinch-hit. And sure enough, Nunez launched a 1-and-0 pitch into the first row of the Monster Seats to pry the game wide open for the Red Sox.

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Because of course he did. Because Cora had envisioned this exact scenario hours before it unfolded.

"Having (Nunez) on the bench,'' offered Cora of his thought process, "it was going to pay off. You've got to keep a righty (bat available for later in the game). (Steve) Pearce is playing, Ian (Kinsler) was playing. So keeping him in the dugout and out of the lineup was going to probably give us a chance to win a game.''

Fans aren't the only ones who believe Cora can do little wrong at this point. That faith extends to the dugout.

"Yeah, I think right now ... lineups, when he wants to go a different way ... everything seems to be working,'' said Cora's dugout aide de camp, bench coach Ron Roenicke. "But there's a lot of thought that goes into it. It's not just, 'Oh, I think I'll do this today.' I mean, he puts a lot of thought. He puts numbers into it that he gets from (the analytics staff). He discusses it with the hitting coach or me sometimes. So it isn't just a feel thing; there's a reason why he's doing things.''

As Roenicke noted, it was more than the right-left matchup with Wood. There was also the added bonus of having Nunez's more reliable glove at third as the Red Sox sought to protect a late-inning lead.

Again, a method to the madness. And when the moves pay off, even the Red Sox coaches experience a bit of disbelief.

"We chuckle about it some,'' acknowledged Roenicke. "You get on that roll and we hope it continues for another few games. But like I said, it's just not that it goes right; it's the players know it goes right and when the players know it always goes right, it gives them more confidence when they go up in those situations.''

Xander Bogaerts was asked why the Red Sox have such trust in their rookie manager and he gently explained that the equation was backward.

"I think it's about the trust he gives to us, the confidence he gives to us on a daily basis, throughout the season,'' Bogaerts said. "Whenever the team in general is going through a slump, he's always there with some positive words. That sticks with us. We're human beings and it stays in our mind.''

So Nunez shrugged off the initial disappointment he felt when he learned he wouldn't be in the starting lineup and, as Cora had promised, got his opportunity later.

"I think he makes great moves,'' said Nunez, Cora's Game 1 vessel. "He's very smart. I think that he's the reason we're here, because every move we make, it's for a reason. And good things happen every time he makes a move.''