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The Boston Red Sox Saturday, August 3, 2019 * The Boston Globe For Alex Cora and Red Sox, answers are hard to come by Tara Sullivan Maybe Alex Cora should have had that meeting. Maybe he should have cleared a buffet table, knocked over a garbage can, or scattered a few chairs. Something, anything, to wake his Red Sox out of their slumber. Because staying the course isn’t cutting it. Another night, another loss, this time to the Yankees, 4-2, in the Bronx, another reminder that last week’s brief flash of winning baseball was more shooting star than fireworks display, a fading burst from a team that cannot seem to recapture last season’s championship form. That’s five losses in a row now for the Sox, the longest losing streak since 2015. Five losses in a row, or two more than the worst streak this team had at any point of a charmed 2018 campaign. What can Cora do? Well, in the wake of this week’s dispiriting home sweep at the hands of Tampa Bay, the manager said he planned to hold a team meeting (a rarity in his tenure) before getting this Yankee series underway, indicating it would be something more formal than the daily messages he includes in the normal course of game-planning meetings. The idea made sense, given how the team had fallen flat after their two straight series wins against those same Rays and Yankees, and particularly how the locker room risked being deflated by the do-nothing trade deadline actions of general manager Dave Dombrowski. But as Cora prepped his team Friday night, the second-year skipper said there was no meeting, and even more, that the whole idea had been blown out of proportion. No meeting, no changes. No real reason why, either. “I said it two days ago, we might address what’s going on, after the trading deadline. Somebody asked me about the mood in the clubhouse, if they were down because we didn’t add somebody, and I said, ‘We might address it, we might not, I might talk to the guys about where we’re at,’ ” Cora said. “They know where we’re at. Then somebody asked me yesterday about the meeting and I said, ‘I might do it tomorrow, I might not.’ “I do it on a daily basis. It’s just not a closed-door meeting, it’s not like, ‘Let’s close doors and let me go at it.’ . The way I said it was kind of out of proportion. First of all, if I’m going to have a team meeting, you guys are going to be the last people who will know about it. Second, we communicate with players on a daily basis.” Maybe the meeting that almost was wouldn’t have made a difference — not when starter Eduardo Rodriguez was handed a first-inning 2-0 lead thanks to J.D. Martinez’s two-run homer and handed it right back in the bottom of the inning with one bases-loaded mistake to Gleyber Torres. Not when the Red Sox’ offense went silent the rest of the night with a measly two hits over the final eight innings. That Rodriguez made it through 6⅔ innings was actually a credit to his perseverance, given he’d eclipsed 50 pitches to get six outs. But much like this team this season, it was almost good enough, but ultimately fell short. There was almost a meeting. “We didn’t play well against Tampa, we didn’t play well [last] Sunday against the Yankees. Today was a good baseball game. After the first inning, I thought it might be 13-2,” Cora said. “Honestly, I’m not frustrated by today. It was more frustrating the way we played against Tampa. This was a good baseball game. It happens.” Indeed it does. But the more the days flip by on the calendar, the less room there is to be satisfied with a good effort. The Red Sox need wins, and while the responsibility for better execution lies primarily with the players, the manager can do plenty to set a new tune, or chart a new course. In Cora’s case, every button he pushed last season worked, in part because none of them were flashing red, saying “panic.” His team flew out of the starting gate and never looked back. This season is demanding something different, and while there is absolutely no sense he has lost his team or anything that dire, he hasn’t been able to find the magic of his debut managerial season. And he knows it. “I’m learning. It’s a learning experience,” Cora said after being asked about the difference between fighting for playoff position rather than fending off those fighting behind you. “My only managing experience was 108 wins or whatever it was and magic carpet all the way to the World Series. We’re about to find out. Like I told somebody yesterday, and we’ve been talking about it since last year, short-term goals. Try to win series. If you win every series this month, somebody can do the math for me, I think it’s 20 wins. We don’t have to sweep either. We can do that, but we have to play better. It starts here. This is where it starts.” First-inning slam too much for Red Sox offense in fifth straight loss Peter Abraham Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Thursday that he planned to have a meeting with his struggling team before the start of a pivotal four-game series against the Yankees on Friday night. “I think it’s important,” he said. But no meeting was held when the team arrived at Yankee Stadium. Cora said his words were somehow misinterpreted and that the team meets in some form before every game regardless of the situation. Cora was asked before the game if he had changed his mind about the meeting or had made a joke others missed. “All of the above,” he said before laughing. Cora was much more subdued after a 4-2 loss before a sellout crowd of 46,932. That’s now five consecutive losses for the Sox, their longest skid since dropping eight in a row from July 12-23, 2015. They now trail the Yankees by 11½ games, the largest deficit of the season. The Sox haven’t been this far out of first place since they finished the 2015 season 15 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays. Hoping for a wild card? The Sox would have to get by Tampa Bay and Oakland first. They trail the Rays by four games and the Athletics by 3½. That’s hardly insurmountable with 51 games remaining. But the Sox are a telling 0-3 since the trade deadline passed without president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski adding reinforcements. Now comes a day/night doubleheader on Saturday. The Sox are 1-5 at Yankee Stadium this season and have been outscored 31-17. This could get even worse in a hurry. Eduardo Rodriguez, who pitched into the seventh inning, was left regretting a fastball he threw in the first inning that Gleyber Torres pulled into the left field stands for a grand slam. “This is a game when you pay for your mistakes and I paid for mine,” said Rodriguez, who was given a 2-0 lead in the top of the inning when J.D. Martinez homered off James Paxton and quickly gave it back. All of the runs were scored in the first inning, and the teams combined for only four hits after that. There were only eight hits total in a game that lasted a tidy 2 hours and 41 minutes. “I thought it was going to be 10-8 or something like that after the first inning,” Red Sox second baseman Michael Chavis said. “But that was it.” All the action happened with the first 10 batters. Xander Bogaerts drew a walk with two outs in the top of the first inning. Martinez then pulled a low cutter into the seats in left field for his 24th home run. Paxton allowed four home runs at Fenway Park a week earlier and it appeared nothing had changed. “It was a good start, but I knew we needed to score more than that,” Jackie Bradley Jr. said. Rodriguez lacked command when he took the mound in the bottom of the inning. D.J. LeMahieu singled to left field before Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion drew consecutive walks on 11 pitches to load the bases. “That’s something I have to work on,” Rodriguez said. “I have to get the ball more in the strike zone.” Aaron Hicks fouled out to first base, but Torres stayed on an inside fastball and drove it for his 21st home run. “He always tries to ambush me and I was trying to throw a fastball up,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez put the leadoff hitter on base in the second, third, and fourth innings, but did not allow a run. Rodriguez had retired 9 of 10 when Torres drew a walk in the sixth inning. Gio Urshela followed with a hot shot behind the bag at third. Rafael Devers made the play and fired to first base on one hop to get the out. Rodriguez then retired Cameron Maybin on a ball back to the mound to leave Torres stranded at second. Rodriguez was at 105 pitches after the sixth inning, but stayed in for the seventh and got two outs before LeMahieu doubled to right field over a leaping Mookie Betts.

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