McAdam: Alex Cora still believes, but it's getting harder for everyone else

Alex Cora had to say it.

You don't have to believe it.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the Red Sox second straight embarrassing defeat at the hands of the New York Yankees, Cora stood by his team and its chances.

Asked directly whether the roster, which managed to score 21 runs over two games and still lose twice by four runs, was good enough to win a World Series, Cora didn't hesitate to answer in the affirmative.

"Yeah, we can win the World Series,'' said Cora after the Sox were cuffed around by the Yankees, 12-8. "We can win the World Series. We just need to play better.''

Understand that Cora isn't delusional. He's merely saying what he must say with 78 games remaining on the schedule.

He can't announce that the Sox are cooked, that any chance of repeating as champs is folly, that's they're about to play three months of completely meaningless baseball.

He has to challenge his players and hope that they improve in every single aspect of the game. He has to continue to express public belief even if, privately, he harbors the same suspicions nearly every else does.

Cora has spent a lifetime in the game. His father played the game. His older brother played. Cora, of course, played, too. He's coached and he's managed. He's seen the game from the perspective of a TV analyst and as an executive.

He has to know that the Red Sox are being outclassed by the better teams. The Sox have now lost six times in seven tries against the Yankees and four times in six tries against the Astros. For whatever reason, despite bringing back the majority of the players from a year ago, that this team is nowhere near as good as the 2018 edition.

So Cora offers the usual qualifiers.

"We need to get better in every aspect,'' he conceded.

But the fact is, that's too much to ask for a team that has shown no consistency from the beginning of the season in late March. Sure, they've had some decent runs -- an 16-6 stretch late in April into mid-May; another 10-2 period in the first half of this month -- but they're not sustained.

After every surge forward, they've experienced a regression -- especially when it comes to playing quality teams, the kinds they have to catch up to in the standings.

If you want to look at the math, you'll notice that it's getting worse, not better. After losing the final game of the homestand and the two games in London, the Sox now sit 11 games out in the division, their biggest deficit of the season.

Every team has a bad series occasionally. Earlier this year, the Yankees had difficulty with the Orioles. The Astros have seen their lead shrink at a time when it looked like they might clinch the West before the trade deadline. Losing streaks and short downturns are inevitable over the six-month grind.

But for the past month, the Red Sox' bullpen has been non-competitive -- to use a new phrase that has found its way into the game's lexicon. Twenty-one runs in 12.1 innings may be a relatively small sample size, and done against a menacing lineup. but it's hardly an aberration.

The Sox blew another save Sunday, the second time that's happened in the last three games and the 17th time this season. That's not aberrational -- that's representative, and not in a good way.

As Cora candidly noted, the bullpen isn't the only issue. Some -- though not all -- of the bullpen's failures have been the result of the failings of the rotation. It says something that Eduardo Rodriguez's start over 5.1 innings was the best the Sox had seen in a week. Talk about lowering the bar.

Not even an offense which scored 21 runs in two losing efforts can be let off the hook. Both times in London, the team had opportunities to finish off their late-game comebacks, but couldn't. On Sunday, with the Yankees' pen on the ropes, the Sox left the bases loaded in the eighth.

Meanwhile, from the second through the eighth, the Sox managed to get only two baserunners into scoring position, and one was there by virtue of a Yankee error. If the conditions at London Stadium were so conducive to hitting, where did the Red Sox offense go for six innings?

It's possible that a reliever or two before the deadline could keep the Red Sox on the periphery of the playoff picture. In this era, all that takes is a .500 record, and sure, the Red Sox could achieve that for the next couple of months.

Maybe they'll even get hot enough in September to beat up on the Jays and Orioles and other tankers and squeak in as a wild card.

But to what end?

Could the Red Sox win the World Series? Sure.

I could also learn to fly -- if the laws of aerodynamics change and I somehow soon sprout wings.

So forgive Cora his comments.

He has to say it. You don't have to believe it.