McAdam: Red Sox, Alex Cora manage a rare win that was even harder than it looked

The Red Sox have won just three of their first 10 games, and if the victories are going to be as arduous and hard-fought as they've been so far, the team might be exhausted by the All-Star break.

Unlike a year ago when the Red Sox sprinted from the starter's block to race to a 17-2 start, nothing is coming easy this season. The first win came of the year came thanks to a ninth-inning, pinch-hit three-run homer. The second one was the result of yet another ninth-inning rally.

And Sunday? Sunday was a slog, plain and simple, one long taffy pull over nine innings, with no margin for error.

Alex Cora had to manage this one like a playoff game, utilizing everything -- and nearly everyone -- at his disposal. The alternative would have been one more loss to cap an already dreadful road trip, and even more angst that's already been generated leading up to Tuesday's opener.

The Red Sox had to know this at least somewhat before the game even started. It was designated as a "bullpen game'' even before it started, and when spot starter Hector Velazquez burnt after 39 pitches and just three innings, it became even more of one.

After Brandon Workman supplied a 1-2-3 fourth, Marcus Walden, summoned from Triple-A after Brian Johnson was placed on the IL Saturday, came out of nowhere to toss two shutout innings.

From there, it was two more from Matt Barnes, and finally, a standard-issue ninth-inning save situation for Ryan Brasier that became plenty hairy when David Peralta reached on a two-0ut double, representing the potential tying run in scoring position.

Five pitchers gave the Red Sox the final 18 outs, each one of them critical, each one like a root canal.

Let's face it: the way the first 10 games went, it was logical to expect disaster to strike somewhere in there: a dropped fly ball, an errant throw ... something that would have ripped this one from the Red Sox' grasp.

But for once, things worked according to plan. And there was a plan, right down to the two innings asked of Walden.

"That was the plan all along,'' Cora told reporters after the Red Sox had held for dear life to a 1-0 shutout win, snapping a three-game losing skid. "At one point, if we got the lead, it was (going to be) Tyler (Thornburg) because we don't just burn our multiple-inning guys with the lead.''

Cora refused to acknowledge that the win -- which allowed the Sox to avoid a second four-game losing streak before they even so much as stepped foot in Fenway -- felt like a relief.

He had another word for it.

"It was a grind,'' he conceded. "Give credit to Ron (Roenicke, bench coach) and Dana (LeVangie, pitching coach). It was a total team effort from the coaching staff today, going back and forth, looking for the pinch-hitters, when not to pinch-hit. The bullpen game (against a team) in the National League, that's the tough part. But you know what, we deserved to grind it today. We were pretty bad, so we had to think a little bit today and grind it out and it's a good win.''

Thanks to a starting rotation which has repeatedly put the Red Sox behind early -- or blown multi-inning leads in the middle of games Cora hasn't had a lot of time to deploy his bullpen the way he likes. He's been too busy trying to orchestrate comebacks to worry about lining up his relievers for particular roles and matchups.

But in a scoreless duel through six innings and 1-0 game over the final three frames, Cora had room to maneuver.

What's clear after just a week and a half of games is that Cora views Matt Barnes as his best high-leverage reliever with Brasier right behind him. After Mitch Moreland's solo homer in the top of the seventh gave the Red Sox their first lead of the day, he went to Barnes with nine outs to go.

The reason? The Diamondbacks had Adam Jones and Ketel Marte -- their fourth and sixth hitters respectively -- due up in the seventh, and the guys most likely to hit the ball out of the ballpark. So Cora tabbed Barnes for the seventh, and after a 14-pitch, 1-2-3 inning, sent him right back out for the eighth for the bottom third of the Arizona lineup.

That, in turn, left the ninth for Brasier who got two quick outs before yielding a double to the left-center field gap to Peralta. A base hit by Jones would have tied the game and likely sent the Sox spiraling again. But Brasier got him to ground out to Xander Bogaerts for the final out.

"We love winning,'' said Cora, who has seen precious little of it to start his second season as manager. "We won and enjoyed it. We know where we're going. We know how good we are. We know that we have to get better. We learned a lot on this road trip and now it's over.''

And not a moment too soon.