{"id":654133,"date":"2026-03-31T09:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/654133\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:40:19","slug":"alex-cora-preaches-patience-following-red-sox-slow-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/654133\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Cora Preaches Patience Following Red Sox Slow Start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-red-sox\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Red Sox<\/a> have started slowly offensively. Over the first four games, they&#8217;ve scored 11 runs and struck out 41 times, going 1-3 over that span.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Two of the new additions to the lineup, Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin, have started particularly slowly. The two have just one hit between them &#8212; a base hit from Contreras on Sunday. Contreras has also walked four times, while Durbin has walked once.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, the Red Sox recorded just four hits and scored one run in an 8-1 loss to the Houston Astros. When asked about starting the season in a slump, Red Sox manager Alex Cora was able to relate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I mean, shoot, I think I started my career 0 for 17,&#8221; Cora said, as seen on the NESN postgame show. &#8220;You look up, and you see the low numbers.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cora actually started his career 0-9 before recording a bunt single in his tenth at-bat, but his first 11 plate appearances came over the course of a month, which likely made 0-9 feel like 0-17, or even more.\u00a0While every hitter goes through cold streaks over a 162-game season, starting the season in a slump comes with added pressure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One thing for sure, don&#8217;t rush yourself to get a hit, right? Stay within yourself, work the count, put up a good at-bat. I think that&#8217;s something Willson [Contreras] has done. I think Caleb [Durbin] today was able to do that, although the results weren&#8217;t there,&#8221; Cora said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox have a tough test on Tuesday. Hunter Brown is slated to start for the Astros, coming off a season in which he placed third in American League Cy Young voting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More Red Sox:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-red-sox\/news\/should-red-sox-fans-be-worried-about-new-additions-early-struggles\/e4b1bf2f9125e63be29d02e1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Should Red Sox Fans Be Worried About New Additions&#8217; Early Struggles?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Red Sox have started slowly offensively. Over the first four games, they&#8217;ve scored 11 runs and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,4,89,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-654133","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-redsox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116323131659608502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654133","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=654133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}