{"id":54533,"date":"2025-05-25T22:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T22:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/54533\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T22:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T22:03:10","slug":"red-sox-notes-alex-cora-assesses-underwhelming-homestand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/54533\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Notes: Alex Cora Assesses Underwhelming Homestand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BOSTON \u2014 A 10-game homestand could have catapulted the Boston Red Sox early in the season.<\/p>\n<p>But the Red Sox wrapped it up Sunday finishing exactly where they started.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t gain momentum. We didn\u2019t lose momentum,\u201d Red Sox manager Alex Cora said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401695689\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">following a 5-1 loss<\/a> to the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox couldn\u2019t string more than two wins together on the homestand and dropped the final two contests to the Orioles. They went 5-5 over the 10 games and Boston produced only two runs in the two losses to Baltimore.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were inconsistent this homestand, pitching-wise,\u201d Cora said. \u201cIt seems like when he hit, we didn\u2019t pitch and then when we pitched, we didn\u2019t hit. So, I think 5-5 is what we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox now stand at 27-28 as they have hovered around .500 for the entire season \u2014 Boston hasn\u2019t been higher than three wins above .500 on the campaign. A strong winning streak would change that and it\u2019s feels much-needed for a team which can\u2019t find consistency this year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re still playing where we\u2019re at \u2014 an average team,\u201d Cora said. \u201cHopefully when we get our streak, we can get to eight games over .500 and take off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rafael Devers, Wilyer Abreu, Kristian Campbell, David Hamilton, Nick Sogard and Ceddanne Rafaela went a combined 0-for-20 in Sunday\u2019s loss to Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p>Jarren Duran admitted the team is \u201cgrinding\u201d at the moment, and that description really would be true since the season started two months ago. But Duran feels like the Red Sox taking off is just around the corner. <\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all know baseball. It kicks your butt and you love it and you hate it,\u201d Duran said. \u201cWe got a lot of young and hungry guys. I know we got some older guys who are hungry, too. So, I feel like that\u2019s going to fuel our fire to just keep pushing and keep working hard to get to that next level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here are more notes from Sunday\u2019s Red Sox-Orioles game:<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Walker Buehler made his first start <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/05\/pool-report-gives-reason-for-walker-buehlers-ejection-vs-mets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">since getting ejected<\/a> and turned in five solid innings. The veteran righthander allowed four hits, two runs and two walks while striking out three. He threw only 85 pitches as the Red Sox were careful in Buehler\u2019s second start back from the injured list. Buehler wished he could have provided more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt really good against New York and whatever happened happened, and then to kind of feel flat or whatever is disappointing,\u201d Buehler said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Marcelo Mayer recorded his first big-league hit when he led off the bottom of the second inning with an opposite field single. The 22-year-old, who got the start again at third base, also laced a double into the right-center gap at 105.1 mph off the bat to begin the bottom of the ninth to complete a two-hit day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was just trying to get a pitch to hit,\u201d Mayer said of his first at-bat. \u201cI ended up getting two strikes I think. Shot it to left field. It was a really cool moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Red Sox <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/05\/red-sox-make-roster-move-before-series-finale-against-orioles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">called up Zack Kelly<\/a> prior to the game and used him right away with the bullpen taxed. Kelly made his first appearance for Boston since April 20 and let up one hit, two runs (one earned) and one walk in two innings of work.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 It\u2019s not often Duran collects four hits from the leadoff spot and the Red Sox only produce one run. It was the eighth four-hit game for Duran in his career. Duran has hit safely in 10 out of his last 12 games as the All-Star outfielder has found his groove after some bumps along the way to begin the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPersonally, I feel terrible because I just want to do more for the team. That\u2019s one thing that makes me worse some times,\u201d Duran said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I got (assistant hitting coach Pete Rosenthal), (hitting coach) Pete (Fatse), (hitting strategy coach Joe Cronin), AC, just to keep me level-headed and say, \u2018Hey bro, you\u2019re on the same exact track (as last year), man. Just keep chugging, keep working, keep doing your thing and you\u2019re going to be perfectly fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Red Sox lived through another defensive nightmare of a play in the eighth inning, which resulted in a Little League home run for Ryan O\u2019Hearn. After O\u2019Hearn doubled, Rafaela\u2019s throw missed the cutoff man and rolled away off O\u2019Hearn, allowing Gunnar Henderson to score. O\u2019Hearn broke for third and Mayer threw the ball away to allow O\u2019Hearn to score.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Red Sox head off to face the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday. Boston will send Garrett Crochet to the mound to start a three-game series from American Family Field. First pitch is set for 2:10 p.m. ET and you can catch complete game on NESN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 A 10-game homestand could have catapulted the Boston Red Sox early in the season. But the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,696,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-54533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-red-sox","14":"tag-red-sox-notes","15":"tag-redsox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114570736669562159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}