{"id":661515,"date":"2026-04-03T21:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661515\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T21:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:10:17","slug":"after-red-sox-demolished-in-houston-alex-cora-offers-simple-solution-before-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661515\/","title":{"rendered":"After Red Sox \u2018demolished\u2019 in Houston, Alex Cora offers simple solution before home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2014 As the Red Sox arrive home for their Fenway Park opener Friday afternoon<\/a>, they do so with the understanding that they need to snap out of a losing streak fast. The celebration of the home opener is somewhat subdued by the fact Boston has lost five in a row and was just outscored 23-7 in a poorly played three-game sweep in Houston following another lost series in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played well in Cincinnati. We lost two out of three there,\u201d said manager Alex Cora. \u201cWe got demolished in Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That demolition, at the hands of an Astros team that seemed to be clicking on all cylinders in its second series, was felt in all areas of the game for the Red Sox. Offensively, though, things were particularly bad. Lance McCullers, Hunter Brown and Mike Burrows all shut down Boston\u2019s offense, which failed to sustain any rallies during the series and struck out 38 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good baseball team,\u201d Cora said of Houston. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got (Carlos) Correa and Yordan (Alvarez) healthy the way they are and Lance throwing the ball the way he did, a lot of teams are going to run into them. It just happens it was early for us and we faced them at the wrong time, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of Wilyer Abreu, who has had another hot start to his season, and catchers Carlos Narv\u00e1ez and Connor Wong<\/a>, the lineup has not produced as expected. In the mind of Cora, it\u2019s simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need to hit, to be honest with you,\u201d Cora said. \u201cThat\u2019s it. There\u2019s a few guys that, numbers-wise, it doesn\u2019t seem like they\u2019re getting on base, but they are. You look at Masa (Yoshida), Willson (Contreras), Jarren (Duran), they\u2019re taking their walks so their on-base percentage is good.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s others that are not getting on base or hitting the ball hard. You can talk about Trevor and Caleb.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two worst-performing regulars are Trevor Story (4-for-29, 13 strikeouts) and Caleb Durbin (0-for-18, 5 strikeouts), though Ceddanne Rafaela (hitting .211), Duran (.167), Contreras (.150) and Marcelo Mayer (.200) have also struggled. For Cora, the good at-bats will come first with the results to follow. For the Red Sox, who have 67 strikeouts and just 22 walks so far, Cora believes a more passive approach may lead to runs. Strikeouts are going to be part of the game but need to be limited in certain spots.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we can adjust to is to swing less,\u201d Cora said. \u201cWe\u2019re swinging a lot. We are. And when you\u2019re swinging a lot, that means you\u2019re chasing pitches. It means you\u2019re fouling off pitches that you don\u2019t have to offer to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we are this team. We will put the ball in play, but all of the sudden, you\u2019re not going to go from a 28% strikeout rate to 18%. Impossible. If you\u2019ve got that guy, let me know. If you\u2019ve got that hitting coach, let me know. I\u2019ll give him my salary and I\u2019ll retire. It\u2019s not gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The schedule doesn\u2019t get much easier at home for the Red Sox, who will face two straight playoff teams from 2025 in the Padres and Brewers over the next few days.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said before, it\u2019s six games,\u201d Cora said. \u201cI get it. I understand the record. As far as the numbers, over 162, if you are who you are, you will hit your stride and you\u2019ll get hot and your numbers are going to get to where they\u2019re supposed to. But we didn\u2019t get off to a good start on the road. We\u2019re 1-5. That\u2019s the reality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

More Red Sox coverage<\/p>\n

Read the original article on MassLive<\/a>. Add MassLive<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 As the Red Sox arrive home for their Fenway Park opener Friday afternoon, they do so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[858,42,5,3615,789,1396,535,790,139,54,3211,1328,1248,363,4,89,1035,606],"class_list":{"0":"post-661515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-alex-cora","9":"tag-astros","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-caleb-durbin","12":"tag-carlos-narvaez","13":"tag-ceddanne-rafaela","14":"tag-cincinnati","15":"tag-connor-wong","16":"tag-houston","17":"tag-houston-astros","18":"tag-houstonastros","19":"tag-hunter-brown","20":"tag-marcelo-mayer","21":"tag-mike-burrows","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-red-sox","24":"tag-trevor-story","25":"tag-wilyer-abreu"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116342831578525546","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661515","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=661515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}