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NEW YORK – Long before he led the Boston Red Sox to a franchise record of 108 wins, he had not beaten the New York Yankees by managing a near-perfect playoff series before the championship series of the American League is being invoked and only four world series wins away, Alex Cora needed a service.
When he called Rick Porcello and Chris Sale in January, they were delighted to hear it. During the previous two months, as he was about to enter the Red Sox's snake pit, Cora had traveled the country, meeting with players, soliciting their advice, listening to their grievances, guard against his plans. It was not so long ago that Cora was a player, which allowed him to understand the dynamics of the modern clubhouse. He also acknowledged that every new job had blind spots, and he took the trouble to look for them and face them, because the best baseball managers are not seen as such by pure tactical genius or personal affinity, but by the quality that connects them. two: trust.
Cora knew that the director could serve as a hub for a clubhouse of 25 men, with very different profiles and personality, provided that he offered his unwavering support. Now, however, he needed them to be here for him, for his homeland. He asked Porcello and Sale, two of the Red Sox veterans and leaders, to join him on a hurricane-ravaged trip to Puerto Rico.
"Of course, we said yes," Porcello said late Tuesday night as Yankee Stadium clubhouse staff pulled out the plastic wrap and cleaned up the venue after the Red Sox strangled the Yankees (4-5). 3). their division series of the American League with a win of three games to one. "We knew how important it was to him."
Rookie manager Alex Cora has earned the trust and respect of the Boston Red Sox. (Getty Images)
When Porcello announced that he would join Cora in the plane to deliver supplies to Caguas, his hometown, the two men had already met. They had continued to talk, Cora asking questions about the leadership of the Red Sox, about the flaws of the team, about areas in which he could help, and the comfort was instant, the natural relationship. So, this favor – it did not look like an imposition to Porcello or Sale, who took a separate flight from that of Cora, Porcello and other Red Sox employees left Boston on January 30 to carry a part of the 10 tons of supplies that Cora had procured. They felt almost obligated, all for someone who had never managed them in one game.
That's what Alex Cora brought to Boston. The effuseur with whom the Red Socks talk about him looks like a cult, and yet, the team members swear that it is real, that the authenticity of the 42-year-old woman invites loyalty without asking . That when he interviews for the position of manager and says that the Red Sox help victims of Hurricane Maria, the authenticity is undeniable. That when 300 families seek help and he is there with a convoy of people to be insured, he emanates from the same compass he uses in uniform, a hope that he hopes to constantly go to the good.
"For those who are doing well in their first year, it's not like them," Porcello said. "He seems to have been doing this for a very, very long time. What we feel in this club is how much it really, really, really cares about us. It looks like a cliché. & # 39; It does not matter. You are professional athletes. Who gives a [expletive]? But that means a lot. His job is to put the guys in a position to succeed. We may be baseball players and maybe not the most educated people in the world, but you feel that kind of thing, who's leading the bar, and I can not say enough good things about it . I'm so grateful to be here, to play for him. This is not a bull[expletive]. It's nothing else than I like the fact that I'm playing for Alex Cora and the Boston Red Sox right now. "
***
When he arrived at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday afternoon, Chris Sale walked out of the club door, saw Alex Cora and said four words: "I want the ball."
Cora burst out laughing. Dirty is arguably the AL's best thrower, certainly on Mount Rushmore active pitchers, and if the Red Sox had not won the fourth game, Sale was to start the fifth and decisive. He reported to Cora that, if he wanted it for a relief sleeve, Sale was ready. The pitchers are notoriously demanding the ball, and Dirty doing it after a season in which he has fallen twice on the list of disabled people with shoulder fatigue could have been a red flag if Cora did not. had not spent the season getting to know Sale, his desires, his life, his family, and gaining enough of his faith for Sale to know better than to lie about his ability to pitch.
A year ago to the day, Sale had also launched a relief. It was the fourth game in the Red Sox Division series against the Houston Astros. When he entered the fourth inning, Boston was dragged by a race. Then the Red Sox took advantage of one point. Dirty was cruising until the eighth inning, when Alex Bregman created the draw with a home lead. Houston took the lead when Sale left with a runner on the base and Craig Kimbrel, closer, allowed him to score. The game still haunts Sale.
"I try to learn from every experience and my mistakes, of course," he said. "My first match was cursed. It was as bad as possible. And I think it has improved for this situation here and that I hope to go ahead. I look a lot what happened the first time and I obviously try to return the script, and we are there. "
The Red Sox led the Yankees in the eighth inning. They had scored three points against starting veteran CC Sabathia and had scored another on receiver Christian Vázquez, another spell by Cora in a complete series. Vázquez, a native of Puerto Rico who also participated in the rescue trip to Caguas, did not play in the playoffs. He had not caught Porcello, the star of Match 4, all year round. Cora sought the advantage of the peloton with right-handed Vázquez against the left-handed Sabathia. He has been rewarded.
Dirty had already been to the wicket three innings earlier, had warmed up in the seventh and, as the largest body of Boston's relief corps was her greatest weakness, Cora did not leave her to chance.
"Hey," said Cora, he shouted at the dugout, "we're all in. He's coming in."
The canoe of the Red Sox is agitated. The bullpen door opened. Dirty, who weighed 6 feet 6 inches and weighed 180 pounds, his skin, bones and left arm jogged to the mound.
"We are about to win," said Mitch Moreland. "That's what it was."
Chris Sale asked for the ball and launched the eighth round for the Red Sox in the fourth game against the Yankees. (Getty Images)
When Sale closed the Yankees to propel Boston to ninth place, it seemed like, for the Red Sox, it was like the culmination of something. Like the 162 games that brought them to that moment, it's not just a talented team playing rope. They wanted to say something. They fortified this group. They showed that what Cora had done gave him the capital to bring in Chris Sale and not get caught short, but rather something more representative of the absolute optimism that characterizes his calling card. The Red Sox have trusted him just as he trusts them.
Veteran second baseman Ian Kinsler told Cora to play Brock Holt in Game 3. The latter marked the first cycle of its playoff history and the Red Sox left their worst playoff defeat in nearly 400 games played. Porcello trusted Cora when he called his number in the first match log, then when they agreed that he should postpone his start from match 3 to 4. And Nathan Eovaldi trusted Cora when he asked to change his start time and turn off the Yankees in the third game.
"We are all aware that we are all here to do what is necessary to win a championship," said Kinsler. "It's really what really matters. There is no ego here. There is no "I did it" or "I'm angry because someone did it". Alex does not care who did it. And we trust each other. We all believe one in the other. We are all here to win a championship. It's easy enough when everyone is going in the same direction. "
For six months of the season and six weeks in the spring, and the previous three months, while he was traveling to Texas and Florida and everywhere to meet his players, Alex Cora was setting the stage. for the game 4. He deserved it. Rick Porcello and Chris Sale were going to help him this time. And the rewards were going to be terribly beautiful.
***
Then came the ninth round. Baseball is funny like that. Alex Cora had achieved a flawless series and the clean frame of Sale has prepared him the ideal scenario: Craig Kimbrel for three outs. Cora wanted Kimbrel because he was one of the most dominant players in history, and a three-point cushion seemed good enough until now.
Market. Unique. Strikeout. Market. Struck by the pitch. It was 4-2. Sacrifice flying on a balloon with loaded bases that landed 7 feet from the fence of the left field. It was 4-3. Kimbrel flinched. Cora put Joe Kelly in the closet, in case his counterpart, Aaron Boone, would not have done it for two days in a row. In match 3, the election of Luis Severino, who was leaving too long, contributed to the historic defeat. On Tuesday, Boone blocked starting pitcher CC Sabathia for three rounds in which he allowed Boston to score three times before Vazquez's home run.
In truth, Kimbrel was not going anywhere. That was his game. He pulled himself together, pulled a weak ball on the ground of rookie Gleyber Torres, watched the third baseman Eduardo Núñez on the ground and started the race, then squeezed on everyone that first baseman Steve Pearce barely kept his foot on the base for the final, replay the exam and then began to celebrate. It was a dirty move. It was closer to a dreadful collapse. Cora stayed with Kimbrel anyway.
"He knows his players very well," said Kinsler. "He knows them both inside and out. And he trusts his players. There is trust and respect. These are two huge things about sports. He does not handcuff anyone. He believes in his guys, and it shows. Guys love to play for him.
At 12:09 pm, just half an hour after clinching their spot in the ALCS against the Houston Astros – with whom Cora won the World Series as a bench coach – the clubhouse stereo it's turned into triumphant hip-hop. tracks at an old school jam. Sly smiles spread over the faces of the initiates when the first words hurry between the speakers: "Start spreading the news …"
As he was leaving Fenway Park after the Yankees' win in the second game, field player Aaron Judge was carrying a boombox on which appeared New York, New York. Now, Boston was engaging in a delightful counter-trolling, playing the winning title of the Red Sox's Yankees Celebration. The rivalry is alive and well, from the players to the managers through the fan base, all more invigorated for years.
Alex Cora is impossible to quantify, yet it's impossible to deny the way he managed Boone in the Division Series. (Getty Images)
In Boston, in particular, they fell in love with this Red Sox team this summer. It's not without weaknesses. The Astros could be favored in the ALCS even though Boston gets the home field advantage with Saturday's first game. They are loved because the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. It is impossible to quantify everything that is directly attributable to Alex Cora. Yet the way he managed Boone in Division Series is also impossible to deny.
They went to a place where Sale was never, a place where Porcello last went to Detroit in 2013, when the Tigers lost to the last Red Sox championship team. Four wins there, and this is the world series. Four victories over there, and it's a parade. Alex Cora, the hard-hitting manager at a time when managers have almost the same impact, the person in whom the Red Sox have trusted because he trusts them, would also be there.
"From top to bottom," said Sale, "we are as good as we can."
Especially at the top.
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