Boston Red Sox are playing sloppy baseball, base running gaffes proving costly
The Red Sox were incredibly sloppy on the diamond against the Minnesota Twins. Boston had opportunities to win Wednesday night’s game. Instead, bad base running and poor play in the field resulted in a 9-6 loss.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora is watching his team make mental mistakes. Bad base running is one of those mental mistakes and it cost Boston runs.
Bad base running and mental mistakes
Back in the third inning, Christian Vazquez failed to score on a Kyle Schwarber single with two outs. Vazquez forgot how many outs there were in the inning and never ran on contact. Cora did nothing about Vazquez’s base running blunder and left him in the game.
“For me, it’s very frustrating to see a team that I manage be sloppy fundamentally,” Cora said. “It’s hard. That’s my biggest battle because I do believe the talent is here. From my end, it’s like, ‘This is what we’ve been talking about the whole time, in spring training.’ We’ve been talking about it the whole season and it keeps happening.”
Verdugo thought he got one off of Ober, stayed in the box to admire it, watched it clang high off the Wall, tried to kick into gear to consider a double but slammed on the brakes and was nonetheless thrown out retreating to first. Not good.
— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) August 26, 2021
The base running blunders continued for the Red Sox in the fourth inning. Alex Verdugo connected with one and drove it off the Green Monster. Verdugo never ran hard out of the box upon contact. Instead, he admired the shot he hit off the wall. The 25-year-old outfielder would end up getting thrown out after he took too big of a turn around first.
“Those things, you can control,” Cora said. “Know the outs. Run out of the box.”
Cora’s frustration is mounting
Cora’s comments come on the heels of their embarrassing loss to the Rangers on Saturday night. The veteran manager has been very supportive of his players in the past. However, the poop fundamental baseball Boston is playing is starting to get Cora frustrated.
Cora called the 10-1 loss to the Rangers last weekend “embarrassing.” Fast forward to the 9-6 extra innings loss to the Twins, his frustration is still clearly evident.
“It’s an area where we’ve been bad,” he said. “We forgot the outs. We didn’t run out of the box. It’s probably a different game early on. Obviously, they don’t want to do that. Like I’ve been saying, it feels like sometimes we’re not doing enough coaching-wise because it just keeps happening. Yeah, it’s on them and it’s on us. As a group, we’re not doing a job with that.”
Sloppy play reeks for the Red Sox
Alex Cora didn’t call anybody by name today but it was very clear for who the message was, this team needs to wake up and what Vazquez, Verdugo and JD did today is inexcusable for Big League players. Yes, Robles sucked too but he shouldn’t have pitched.
— Boston Strong (@BostonStrong_34) August 26, 2021
The Red Sox have 34 games left this season and are clinging to the a Wild Card spot. Cora’s team needs to stop the sloppy play, poor base running and begin to field better defensively. While all three of those points are valid to the naked eye, the stench of poor play reeks in Boston. Cora has to find a way to fix it or they’re season will come to a merciful end early.
– Chris Henrique (@ChrisHenrique on Twitter)
Feature image courtesy of Boston.com
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