Once the site of one of the highest highs in franchise history, the 2024 Boston Red Sox suffered what’s likely to be their lowest low on Wednesday afternoon in Denver.
Not only did the beyond-embarrassing *20-7 loss* — blowout, beatdown, disembowelment, none of those words are truly strong enough — to the Colorado Rockies represent the worst moment of their season, it may also have marked their death blow.
It shouldn’t, mind you, but it very well could have…
FINAL: Rockies 20, #RedSox 7
— Red Sox (@RedSox) July 24, 2024
Wednesday’s game featured it all, in true “whatever could go wrong, did go wrong” fashion…
There was an all-around abysmal pitching performance. Then there was Rockies starter Cal Quantrill barking at Reese McGuire about… certain past activities… after an inning-ending flyout to end the fourth.
The shouting led to shoving, and the benches and bullpens cleared… and the Sox only trailed by six at that point.
Cal Quantrill showboating and yelling at Reese up 8-2 started the benches clearing incident.
— Boston Sports Gordo (@BOSSportsGordo) July 24, 2024
His dad Paul Quantrill pitched in the Red Sox Yankees game 20 years ago today where Tek fought ARod. Which is a bizarre fact.
pic.twitter.com/tUzcK7hhob
Nick Pivetta’s start was damaging on multiple fronts — not only hurting his team in a critical rubber match, but also damaging his trade value in the process. Pivetta’s seven-run, 10-hit debacle in just 2 2/3 innings against one of baseball’s bottom dwellers was… well, not a good look.
“I didn’t have my best stuff. … Yeah, it’ll be nice to have that off day tomorrow,” Pivetta admitted. “Focus on our families, kind of get away from the field, and then reset for I think the Yankees, right?”
Yes, Nick… it’s the Yankees.
The only real positive performance in this disaster of a game came from, surprise, surprise, All-Star Game MVP Jarren Duran.
Duran, who was jawing with Quantrill when the benches cleared, got his revenge with a fifth-inning solo blast — his third homer in six games since the break — and later knocked a two-run triple in the ninth. He extended his hitting streak to eight straight games and has 10 RBIs since his shining moment in Arlington.
Jarren Duran home run! pic.twitter.com/qXuQXFjND8
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 24, 2024
But SuperDuran aside, it was another ugly showing in an ugly 1-5 road trip for the Red Sox. Pivetta, for one, thinks his team “didn’t really play that bad of baseball” and that “we attacked our hitters the way we needed to” during the trip.
Can’t really agree with you there, Nick. But he was dead right about at this…
“The guys scored runs when they needed to,” he said. “They always came back throughout the series.”
Once again, the offense showed up. Seven runs should be more than enough to win any baseball game. All in all, Boston averaged nearly 5.7 runs per game and only had a run differential of negative-2 on the trip before Wednesday’s finale. Again, that should be enough offense to compete in most ballgames.
But once again, the pitching proved problematic for the Sox — and while struggles for the starter have been more of an outlier this season, the reliability of the bullpen continues to erode with each passing series.
Now the Red Sox at 54-47 sit seven games over .500, 6 1/2 back of first place in the AL East and 1 1/2 games out of the playoff picture overall. To the everyday fan and observer, that probably doesn’t seem all that bad with 61 games to go.
And the truth is, it really isn’t bad at all.
But for a front office seemingly looking for a reason not to buy in on this year’s team, one can’t help but wonder if the Sox’s poor showing against one of baseball’s worst teams on the heels of being KO’d by one of baseball’s best teams will be what the Craig Breslows and Sam Kennedys of the world focus on instead of all the good.
We already know they’re not exactly working with an endless budget from John Henry and Tom Werner above. If the decision makers were looking for a reason to say, “Aha! They’re not real contenders after all” … well, the Sox in these last six games may have just given them one.
Again, I hope not, but would anyone truly be surprised if that’s how it plays out?
(In an interesting development, the Boston Globe reports that Breslow has finally picked his lane as a "buyer" at the deadline. If true, hey, that's great. I'm not questioning the Globe's reporting, but we all know that actions speak louder than words...)
Whether or not we look back on July 24th as the official time of death for the 2024 Red Sox won’t be known for a couple of months more. There’s plenty of baseball left, but the last two series before the deadline against the Yankees and Mariners just became a whole lot more important…
Cora’s back
Alex Cora was as good as gone.
That’s what we in the media thought. That’s what Red Sox fans thought. Heck, it’s even what Rockies fans thought…
“It was the eighth inning and some guy (at Coors Field) goes ‘Alex, we gonna miss you,’” Cora said. “I’m like… well, (I guess) you don’t have social media, right?’”
Believe it or not — and, in some ways, it is hard to believe — Cora isn’t going anywhere.
“All kidding aside, I love everything that comes with this uniform. I love everything that comes with the Red Sox. Like I said in 2017, it’s the closest thing to back home,” Cora said. “Back home (in Puerto Rico), for the WBC (everything) stops. For boxing matches, it stops. And at Fenway, everyday stops for the Red Sox.”
When push came to shove, faced with season-long uproar from the fanbase and talking heads (and BSJ writers) to re-sign him, the Sox’s ownership and front office stepped up and did the right thing. Now, one of the most popular managers in Red Sox history is here to stay for three more years.
Boston is home. pic.twitter.com/WXTKxjEH8v
— Red Sox (@RedSox) July 24, 2024
First thing’s first, let’s give credit where credit is due: kudos, Henry, Werner, Kennedy, and of course, Breslow.
Kudos, gentlemen.
I don’t know how much involvement each of those individuals had in making this move — although Cora did say that Breslow flew in to Denver on Tuesday and "became the closer." Nonetheless, when things go wrong, they’re the ones to blame — being in charge, and all. That also makes them deserving of praise when things go right.
So what changed? We went from Cora speaking sparingly — and when he did, tersely — about his contract status in Boston, and from Breslow making lukewarm comments about Cora’s future, to statements like this one…
“I had a tremendous amount of respect for Alex long before I took this job; that respect has only grown these last several months … I’m happy to be able to extend our commitment to Alex, and I look forward to our partnership continuing to grow,” Breslow’s statement read in part.
Well, for one, the price had to be right. Cora has earned his status as a premier manager in baseball; if we knew it, and he knew it, then you’d better believe the Red Sox knew it too… probably because he may have told them so throughout the negotiation process, repeatedly.
What @Buster_ESPN reported earlier today -- a three-year, $21.75 million contract that will keep Alex Cora in Boston and make him the second-highest-paid manager in the game -- is now official. https://t.co/fOVpn7B6y3
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 24, 2024
Despite saying on multiple occasions that he told the team he wasn’t interested in talking about his next contract during the season, Cora revealed that discussions picked up in “the last few weeks” — a timeline that lines up with the Sox’s midseason resurgence — before culminating in a deal.
Cora was also quick to point out that the agreement to continue on was about more than just baseball to him.
“Today is about the Cora-Feliciano family,” Cora said in the team’s press release. “We love Boston and are very comfortable here.”
And the timing of it all worked out pretty nicely for Cora, too, because I think he answered all of two or three actual baseball questions following his team’s 13-run loss. All part of Cora’s plan, I presume...
What does it mean for the Red Sox? Nothing but good things. In Cora, the Red Sox have a manager who has already proven he can win when given the proper tools on the field. And now, after this season, they can be confident that he is also capable of elevating a young core.
The latter point is particularly important, because Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony and Kyle Teel are about to walk through that door…
“I believed in the group from the get-go,” Cora said. “I think where we going, as far as like the athleticism and the versatility, and obviously having that third baseman leading the way, I felt like we were going to have a good season.”
Cora is truly a jack-of-all-trades manager. The Sox were almost certainly not going to do better than him with any other candidate that they might have brought in, at least not right off the bat.
Breslow, Kennedy, et al. may have toyed around with the thought of moving on from Cora. But at some point, they all wised up and made the move that was too obvious not to make.
Now, let’s all hope that re-signing Cora isn’t the only move the Sox make prior to July 31st…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.
