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Red Sox Playoff Fears Escalate As Alex Cora Admits Alarming Trend

Bonisiwe Shabane
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red sox playoff fears escalate as alex cora admits alarming trend

MLB, Baseball Herren, USA Boston Red Sox at Atlanta Braves Jun 1, 2025 Cumberland, Georgia, USA Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora 13 shown in the dugout before the game against the Atlanta Braves... Cumberland Truist Park Georgia USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xDalexZaninex 20250601_dwz_sz2_0000018 MLB, Baseball Herren, USA Boston Red Sox at Atlanta Braves Jun 1, 2025 Cumberland, Georgia, USA Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora 13 shown in the dugout before the game against the Atlanta Braves... Cumberland Truist Park Georgia USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xDalexZaninex 20250601_dwz_sz2_0000018 With the 3-5 loss to the out-of-contention Oakland A’s, the Boston Red Sox are on the verge of missing out on the postseason for the fourth straight year. Although they still sit on the final AL Wild Card spot, they have fallen 2.5 games behind the Yankees and are just 1.5 games ahead of the Guardians, who are in red-hot form, winning...

This sudden downturn, where the team is 5-10 in their last 15 games at Fenway, has worried Analyst Jared Carrabis. He tweeted, “I’m not full-blown panicking, but this might be the first time that I’m at least acknowledging that the postseason might not happen for this Red Sox team. It’s crazy to say out loud, but we have to be prepared for that outcome. They’ve been that bad without Roman Anthony.” And this is the terrifying reality right now. Manager Alex Cora was blunt and honest with that, following the team’s recent struggles.

“Offensively, you know, there’s some signs today, but we are not there. You know, we’re not there offensively,” Cora stated. “When we’re good, we don’t strike out, uh, we hit the ball all over the place, we run the bases, and the starter doesn’t go six.” Manager Alex Cora has been basking in what has been the Red Sox’s best second half in recent years, the first time the Red Sox have put on a credible surge after a good... The Red Sox are 28-22 now since the All-Star break. Consider recent second-half history.

Boston was 28-38 in the second half of 2024, a .424 winning mark. The Red Sox were 30-41 (.423) the year before that and 30-39 (.435) in 2022. To be sitting with a .560 winning percentage in the second half this season is a feather in Cora’s cap. Except that momentum, which was behind the Red Sox as September opened, seems to have slipped. The injury to outfielder Roman Anthony has been part of that, no doubt, as has the lingering injury to outfielder Wilyer Abreu. The pitching, too, has not been as sharp and the injury to Dustin May forced Boston to play the stretch run with two guys–Connelly Early and Payton Tolle–in the rotation.

Going back to Anthony being put on the injured list on September 3, the Red Sox have lost five of their last eight games. The Red Sox are still in position to earn a playoff spot, but hopes of winning the AL East are fading, as Boston is now 4.5 games behind the Blue Jays and 1.5 games... As the Boston Red Sox continue their grind toward the MLB postseason, manager Alex Cora issued a firm reminder to his players to stay grounded. Cora's playoff message came just hours before Game 2 of a pivotal three game series against the New York Yankees, following a 4-1 loss in the opener. Boston has hit a wall offensively, tallying just two hits in Game 1 while continuing a stretch of inconsistent at-bats. Kutter Crawford surrendered four earned runs across five innings as the team fell to 81-67.

The defeat narrowed their lead in the MLB Wild Card race, now just one game ahead of both Houston and Seattle. Amid this tense backdrop, MLB.com's Ian Browne posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that Cora is urging his team to stop thinking ahead and focus on execution. “I think we should stop talking October, to be honest with you. There's a lot of stuff going on, and we have to play better. I'm not saying we're in a bad spot, but I think we have to wait to see if October is part of this.” The Red Sox offense struggles have been part of a larger concern for the club.

Over the past 10 games, Boston is batting just .268, with most of that production coming in bursts. In Friday’s loss, Nate Eaton and Alex Bregman accounted for the only two hits, as New York’s pitching kept the lineup in check. Send this article to your social connections. Send this article to your social connections. The Red Sox are sitting in a relatively good position to make the postseason entering Saturday’s game against the Yankees, sitting in one of the American League’s three wild-card spots. But Alex Cora doesn’t want to talk playoff baseball quite yet.

Cora isn’t panicking about the Red Sox’ playoff chances. However, the Red Sox manager believes it’s too soon to be managing games with the postseason in mind. “I think we should stop talking October, to be honest with you,” Cora told reporters when asked about trying to find the best possible lineup against left-handed pitchers before the playoffs. “There’s a lot of stuff going on, and we have to play better. The Boston Red Sox have officially been eliminated from playoff contention, and they will miss the postseason for the fifth time in the last six years. There's plenty of blame to go around, and at least some of it belongs to manager Alex Cora.

To Cora's credit, however, he didn't pull any punches or try to sugarcoat the Red Sox's latest choke job when speaking to the media following his team's 6-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays... “Our goal was to make it to the playoffs," Cora said (via Ian Browne of MLB.com). "It didn’t happen ... At one point it felt like we were a playoff-caliber team, and then we missed the opportunity. Let’s put it that way. You look around, you look at the teams that are fighting, we had it right there and we blew it."

Yes, the 2024 Red Sox overcame plenty of adversity – namely, a banged up pitching rotation and lengthy injuries to Triston Casas and Trevor Story – to exceed expectations by playing meaningful baseball into... But there's no room for moral victories here. Cora's right; his club had a legitimate shot at reaching the postseason, and they didn't deliver. "At one point, we felt like we were a playoff caliber team, and then we missed the opportunity."Alex Cora reflects on the season following elimination pic.twitter.com/9VKnnz64Xh

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