MassLive\u2019s Chris Cotillo<\/a>, Cora indicated he likes first baseman Willson Contreras as his cleanup hitter. The top three may not be set, but he revealed which players will likely headline the lineup.<\/p>\n\u201cWillson will be up there (fourth),\u201d Cora said. \u201cRoman will be up there, Jarren is part of it and Trevor has earned the right to hit at the top of the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cora moved Anthony into the leadoff role before the rookie outfielder suffered a season-ending oblique injury last September. The manager indicated that he still likes the 21-year-old as a table-setter, recalling the impact Mookie Betts made as Boston\u2019s No. 1 hitter in 2018.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe\u2019s valuable anywhere\u2026,\u201d Cora said of Anthony. \u201cPutting pressure on the opposition from pitch one, that matters, too. He was amazing for us leading off. That means he\u2019s going to get the most at-bats of anybody. He\u2019s that type of hitter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Duran shifted from leadoff to No. 3 after Anthony\u2019s ascension last summer. He could reclaim that spot, with Story sandwiched between the two left-handed outfielders in a No. 2 hole occupied by Alex Bregman last year.<\/p>\n
That means Durbin presumably won\u2019t begin his Red Sox tenure in the heart of their batting order. Cora hinted that the infielder could bat sixth against right-handed pitchers.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe can hit on top of the lineup, but he can give you length in the lineup,\u201d Cora said of Durbin. \u201cHe\u2019s a good player. He\u2019s a good baserunner. Having him hit behind the lefty that hits behind Willson makes sense, but at the same time, we\u2019ll see against lefties how it plays out. We\u2019ll move him around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilyer Abreu would presumably fit Cora\u2019s desire for a left-handed bat after Contreras at No. 5. That would send catcher Carlos Narv\u00e1ez and center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela to the bottom third of the lineup alongside another starting infielder such as Marcelo Mayer, Isiah Kiner-Falefa or Romy Gonzalez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Cora offered some first impressions of how he could arrange the Boston Red Sox\u2019s lineup card in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[858,5,141,48,2542,604,4,89,2543,793,1035,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-568556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-alex-cora","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-bostonredsox","13":"tag-jarren-duran","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-red-sox","16":"tag-redsox","17":"tag-roman-anthony","18":"tag-trevor-story","19":"tag-willson-contreras"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116058866846821708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568556","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=568556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}