Red Sox’ Alex Cora after another one-run loss: ‘We’re not getting better;’ Craig Breslow offering no solutions as season spirals out of control

Alex Cora is searching for answers.

The Red Sox lost another one-run game on Tuesday night, 4-3 to the Angels, marking their league-leading 17th one-run loss this season.

“We keep making the same mistakes. We’re not getting better. At one point it has to be on me, I guess,” Cora said. “Right?

“I’m the manager. I’ve got to keep pushing them to be better. They’re not getting better. They’re not. We keep making the same mistakes, the same mistakes.

“I’ll be very honest about it and very open about it. You get frustrated. But at one point, what are we going to do? What’s going to change? Because we keep doing the same things.”

Boston is sitting 10 games out of first place and has the fourth-worst record in the American League. The offense continues to strike out at an epic clip, fanning 10 more times in the loss to the Angels on Tuesday, and they were 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position. The team's defense is in disarray, leading the majors with 53 errors. They've been plagued by poor defense for the past couple of years. Previous seasons saw the firing of two coaches, Carlos Febles (2023) and Andy Fox (2024), and yet their defense issues remain.

“Routine ground balls for double plays we don’t turn,” Cora said. “We throw to the wrong bases. We missed the cutoff, guys. PFPs were horrible. So there’s a lot of bad right now.”

Ceddanne Rafaela made a throwing error in the third inning that allowed the Angels to take a 3-0 lead. Angels shortstop Zach Neto hit an RBI single up the middle, and after Rafaela fielded the ball, he decided to throw home; however, his throw sailed away to the backstop. His knucklehead decision to throw home allowed Chris Taylor to advance from second to third, and Neto moved up to second. The two baserunners scored on Nolan Schanuel's two-run single into left field.

Rafaela defended his decision to throw home.

“I think it was the right decision,” Rafaela said about throwing home. “If I execute that throw, I think it was an out.”

Rafaela’s decision to try and make a highlight reel throw home versus the right baseball decision shows the field manager and his coaching staff aren’t properly preparing these players and going over situational baseball.

Kristian Campbell botched a grounder in the fifth inning that could have been a double play. Instead, it allowed the Angels to have two runners on base. Zack Kelly made an error trying to field a sac bunt hit to him in the 10th inning.

“Right now, obviously we know we’re in a tough stretch,” Rafaela said. “I think everybody here doesn’t want to make mistakes. I feel we can’t get frustrated. We’ve gotta keep going. It’s a long season. We have until September. I think we’re still in the battle, and I trust this team.”

Brayan Bello was better, working six innings for the first time since May 2, allowing three runs on seven hits, hitting one batter and walking two others with four strikeouts. Bello's strikeout of Jo Adell, the No. 8 hitter, and his walk of Taylor created an opening for a three-run third inning.

“We missed a cutoff, guy; they scored two,” Cora said. “We hit the eighth hitter. We walked the ninth hitter. We didn’t execute a bunt play. We didn’t advance when we needed to. So you can talk about chances; I can tell you the chances that we gave the opposition. We were lucky to be in that game at the end, to be honest with you.”

The Red Sox season is circling the drain, and Cora sounds like he’s hitting his breaking point. This brings us back to the skipper searching for answers.

“You get frustrated,” he said, “but at one point, OK, what are you going to do? What’s going to change? We keep doing the same thing, the same thing. We can’t keep talking about one-run losses.”

Boston will try to salvage their three-game series with a win against the Halos on Wednesday afternoon before heading to the Bronx this weekend. The Yankees are getting the Red Sox at their lowest point this season and could hammer the coffin shut with a sweep or even taking two of three from their archrivals.

CORA AND BRESLOW NOT ALIGNED

What’s evident is Cora and Craig Breslow are not on the same page. The roster that Breslow built in the offseason is flawed, and is showing its warts with two key bats missing in Triston Casas and Alex Bregman.

The Sox came into the season with a buzz and playoff aspirations after an offseason that landed the club left-handed ace Garrett Crochet, two-time World Series champion Walker Buehler, and veteran leader and reigning third base Gold Glove winner Bregman.

Over the last couple of weeks, finger-pointing has begun in order to place blame on someone for the team’s disconnect. Rafael Devers was the whipping boy at the start of camp and the beginning of the season when he refused to move off third base to be the full-time DH and then opened the season 0-for-19. Since then, he’s been an RBI machine and the best hitter not only in the Red Sox lineup but also one of the best run producers in the American League.

On social media, fans are rightfully calling for Cora's dismissal; he has made questionable in-game decisions, and now he appears to have no answers to figure things out based on his comments on Tuesday night. Cora is trying to capture his team's attention, but their on-field performance suggests that his message isn't reaching them.

The Sox’ CBO is seemingly only locked in on developing pitching and in the process has lost sight of the lineup. In his two seasons leading the front office, his only positional player free agent signing has been Bregman. Every move he makes seems to benefit the pitching pipeline, resting on the notion of the strong farm system loaded with positional players at the upper levels in Worcester and Portland.

What do the Red Sox do? The club needs a major shakeup; one can argue it could start with firing Cora, but he’s two months into his contract extension, and everyone knows John Henry won’t eat that money. Breslow has been subpar in his role; to be fair, anyone reading this could have traded the prospects to acquire Crochet. When you trade two first-round picks and two top 30 prospects, you should be acquiring a player of Crochet’s caliber and upside.

It's easy to criticize the front office, especially Breslow, but he has made some commendable decisions. He traded for Justin Slaten in the Rule 5 draft, he acquired Richard Fitts and bullpen workhorse Greg Weissert in the Alex Verdugo swap, and he even found Carlos Narváez in a sneaky swap with the Yankees this winter. Overall, he’s lacked urgency to impact the lineup, which includes this offseason when the Sox needed at least two right-handed bats after losing Tyler O’Neill in free agency. Breslow countered with signing Bregman at the end of free agency and stated in-house candidates Trevor Story rebounding from his injury-plagued 2024 season and the emergence of Kristian Campbell were enough to impact the lineup from a right-handed hitting perspective.

Breslow failed to find adequate depth at first base. Casas' freak rib cage injury kept him out of the lineup for the majority of last season. He has experienced some injury issues in his young career, but why not add a veteran as insurance in case Casas suffers another setback? Romy Gonzalez should be a great utility weapon off the bench, but he’s been forced into the starting lineup as the everyday first baseman. Abraham Toro has been serviceable at first base and added a few key hits since he was promoted but looks like he has two cinderblocks for feet while playing the hot corner, offering zero range expected of a major league caliber third baseman.

He called up Marcelo Mayer to play third base. In the process, Boston has three rookies in their starting lineup in Mayer, Campbell, and Narváez.

You can argue that Breslow's greatest flaw as chief baseball officer is he is slow to react and make moves to impact his roster. Which was a problem Chaim Bloom had while he led the front office. 

CAMPBELL NEEDS A RESET

Campbell is a crucial part of the Red Sox’ future, but he presently has been drowning at the plate and looks like a bull in a china shop at times at second base. He started the season winning the AL Rookie of the Month in April; since then, the league has figured him out. Should the Red Sox consider demoting the struggling rookie to Triple-A Worcester to help him find his swing again?

“We don’t rule anything out,” Cora said. “But right now, he’s going to play here, he’s going to get at-bats here, and we’re going to keep pushing him to be better.”

Campbell went 1-for-3 with a double, his first extra-base hit in 17 games, and a walk in the loss on Tuesday. Since May 4, he’s slashed .140/.192/.183 with a 29 percent strikeout rate and 6 percent walk rate, yet Cora keeps penciling his name on the lineup card every day.

“Obviously, it’s Boston. Everybody expects us to win every night. That’s what we expect of ourselves,” said hitting coach Pete Fatse. “So there’s, at times, an added pressure element.”

Young players will struggle; the Orioles' Jackson Holliday experienced that last season and was sent down for a period of time to work on getting back on track. Since his hot start, Campbell looks like the game is too fast for him, and maybe it is. He did skyrocket through the Red Sox system last season, which Breslow thought was enough to warrant making the Opening Day roster.

“We’ve got to get the offensive part of it going,” said Cora. “We have to.”

Some players need to see Triple-A again to help find their swing and rebuild some confidence. Campbell needs to hit the reset button, and doing that in the bigs isn’t right for his development.

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE OR KISS OF DEATH?

Over the weekend in Atlanta, Breslow gave the manager a vote of confidence.

“Yeah, we have a lot of confidence in Alex’s ability to lead this group, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have conversations every day about what we might be missing or what more we can do,” Breslow said. “We obviously made a commitment to Alex; we’re going to see that through. Right now it’s about making sure that we’re doing everything we can to enable the 26 guys on our roster to help us win as many games as possible.”

Breslow also expressed his confidence in the coaching staff.

“You know, I think it’s easy to point to that and say, ‘Hey, maybe we need to do something to shake things up or rattle the cage a little bit.’ I’m very mindful of not making a decision irresponsibly or hastily,” Breslow said. “But again, I think at this point we have to question everything we’re doing — I question the work that I’m doing as well.

“We’re all in this together; I think the solution is going to come from the group that we have.”

The season is slipping away, and with two months gone in the 2025 campaign, the Red Sox urgently need a turnaround.

“The simple answer is it’s not good enough. It’s not the performance we expected in the offseason,” Breslow said. “I think we can point to a number of things that haven’t really been able to sync up offense and defense; we’ve been sloppy in the field at times, and we’ve run into mistakes on the bases. And we’re going to have to play clean baseball; we’re going to have to start getting hits and making big pitches if we want to rattle off the wins that we need.

“And if we believe at the end of the day that we have the right processes in place and our guys are doing the right work, then baseball’s the type of sport that will let it play out. But it’s too late in the season, and the evidence is too strong to just say we’re going to be OK tomorrow when we wake up.”

The Red Sox need to wake up. Breslow needs to find external help. Cora needs to find answers quickly, or the 2025 season will end up being another lost season, similar to the last five years and counting.