When, finally, it was over and the Red Sox had somehow escaped with a 10-8 victory over the Atlanta Braves, Alex Cora took a moment to assess his team.
Over the previous three and a half hours, he had watched them kick away a 4-0 lead they built in the first. He had seen Eduardo Rodriguez issue a walk to a light-hitting pinch-hitter at the bottom of the order, paving the way for a three-run Braves fourth. That, in turn, forced him to use his best relievers on a night when the first few innings had suggested that wouldn't be at all necessary.
If nearly squandering a 5-0 lead earlier wasn't bad enough, he then saw two errors, two walks and a passed ball in the sixth cancel out a three-run lead the Sox had built at 7-4.
This should have been a night to get five or so from Rodriguez before turning things over to Matt Andriese and other low-leverage relievers. Instead, he had to call upon the bullpen "A" team to navigate his way through the late innings.
But in the end, he had watched his team snatch the game back for good, capped by a three-run homer in the eighth from Alex Verdugo. And so afterward, he was full of mixed emotions: he was the anxious Dad, watching the family car pull into the driveway with dents everywhere, secure in the knowledge that the kids themselves had returned in one piece.
"We're not that great,'' he conceded, before offering an important qualifier. "We just have a good baseball team.''
The 2021 Boston Red Sox are proof that those two statements are not mutually exclusive.
For now, they lack a true No. 1 starter. What they have are five starters who, most turns through the rotation, keep them in the game and give them a chance.
They don't have a legitimate leadoff hitter, as in defiance of most modern metrics, remains largely productive and occasionally explosive.
And the lineup, while robust in spots, still contains dead spots. There are many nights when he fielded a batting order featuring two players with sub-.200 batting averages.
But for all the data, all the analytic work, these Red Sox are defined by something less tangible. Call it resilient, or tough-minded.
It's the kind of team that gets embarrassed in back-to-back blowouts over the weekend, watches as 13 opposing homers are hit in two days...and then rebounds to earn a series split in a taut 2-1 pitchers' duel.
It's the kind of team that can't hold leads of 5-1 or 7-4, but ultimately, improbably, claims a 10-8 win.
It doesn't have to make sense, and it doesn't have to be pretty. The standings are not built on style points. They merely reflect wins and losses. The Red Sox have 41 of the former.
Here is the complete list of teams who had more than that when the Sox left the field at Truist Park: The Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago White Sox.
End of list.
"We put ourselves in a tough position today,'' admitted Cora. "But in the end, it's a big-league win.''
As a first-year manager in 2018, Cora won so routinely, so often, and frequently, so easily, that he may have taken some of them for granted. But three years later, sufficiently humbled by a disappointing 2019 season and especially by his 2020 suspension, it's as if he's come to appreciate every one in 2021.
He'll find himself listing his team's shortcomings, and highlighting its failures on a given night, because that's what managers do. They assess and evaluate constantly. But then, he'll rein himself in and remember that, in the end, a game was won and that is not be dismissed or ever taken for granted.
"They all count. It doesn't matter,'' he said, recognizing the need to remind himself.
And so, as he lamented having to utilize Adam Ottavino and Matt Barnes in a game that had all the makings of a Boston blowout in the first few innings and wondering what sort of impact that might have in the series finale Wednesday/ He did little to hide his outright disappointment-bordering-on-disgust for the enigma that is Eduardo Rodriguez and appeared as though he didn't have the energy or interest to dissect another failed start from the lefty.
For a minute, he expressed frustration at Christian Vazquez failing to glove an inside fastball from Darwinzon Hernandez with the bases loaded, resulting in a run.
But then he made sure to heap praise on Marwin Gonzalez, unsuccessful in getting a sacrifice bunt down in the eighth, trying again a third time on his own and laying down a beauty, That took guts, he added.
And eventually, he steered himself back to the only thing that mattered: They had won, hadn't they? And wasn't that all that mattered?
Not great by any stretch, and certainly not on this sloppy, mistake-filled night.
But a somehow a good baseball team, too, one now just two games out of first place.