The Friday, April 16, 2021

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Red Sox’ winning streak ends at nine with loss to Twins in series finale

Julian McWilliams

The Red Sox saw their nine-game winning streak come to an end Thursday afternoon in Minneapolis.

With the game knotted, 3-3, in the ninth, reliever surrendered a leadoff single to Luis Arráez, and then was hit by a pitch. After struck out, punched a bloop single into center, giving the Twins a 4-3 victory.

That came on the heels of an eighth inning that had the makings of yet another come-from-behind win for the Sox, who have a league-high five this season when trailing in the fifth inning or later.

Until the eighth, the Sox’ bats had been mostly silent. Twins starter pitched seven shutout innings, allowing just two hits. took over in the eighth but couldn’t find the strike zone, hitting a batter and walking two to bring up with two outs.

Twins manager then summoned lefthander from the bullpen. Rogers got ahead in the count, 0 and 2, but Verdugo battled back and drilled an opposite-field double on the 10th pitch of the at-bat that cleared the bases, tying the game.

“If I took Adderall that’s probably what I would feel like right there,” Verdugo said afterward. “I was zoned in, locked in, and I wasn’t going to let anything go. We live for those [moments]. The long at-bats, the grinding it, the bases loaded, we’re down late in the innings. It’s those simulated things that you always do your reps for.”

There aren’t any moral victories, of course, but manager and the Sox certainly aren’t hanging their heads after this loss. They took three out of four against a formidable opponent, two of which came against elite starters in and José Berriós.

Following an 0-3 start, the Red Sox responded by sweeping the Rays, the 2020 AL East champions. Cora kept that perspective after dropping just one game to the Twins.

“We just beat the Central champions three out of four,” he said. “We’ve been playing good . We didn’t play great overall, but we did everything possible to win the game. And that’s what we take out of this.”

The Twins got on the board early. Sox starter Garrett Richards walked with one out in the second. First baseman then gobbled up a grounder and attempted to get the out at second. Sanó was initially called out, but a replay review showed Dalbec’s throw pulled off the bag.

After singled to load the bases, Luis Arraez — who went 4 for 5 — sneaked a grounder through the right side that scored two.

Richards, who struggled with command early, ended up giving the Sox five grind-it-out innings, allowing four hits while striking out four and issuing two walks. Both of the runs in the second were unearned.

“I just tried to limit the snowball,” Richards said. “I tried to keep it as small as possible. I was trying to throw quality strikes and stay away from guys’ power zones. It’s a talented lineup. You can’t make mistakes with these guys.”

The one big mistake the Sox made came out of the hand of reliever , who took over for Richards in the sixth. Sawamura left a fastball over the inner half of the plate that Sanó belted for a solo shot to left.

The Red Sox’ 9-4 record is still the best in the AL. Thursday’s loss comes with the ebbs and flows of a season, one that had a different tone at the start. Richards, who said the Sox would be OK after dropping their first three games, doubled down on his comments Thursday.

“I’m not a cocky guy, but I made a statement, and usually when I make a statement, I stand by it,” he said. “That’s how I roll. We’re going to keep plugging away.”

White Sox , including one who just threw a no-hitter, are the next challenge for the Red Sox

Julian McWilliams

The Red Sox will host the for a four-game set beginning Friday. White Sox manager Tony La Russa, who served as an adviser with the Red Sox from 2018-19, is also a mentor to manager Alex Cora.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Tony on the other side,” Cora said after the Red Sox’ 4-3 loss to the Twins Thursday. “You know, managing against a Hall of Famer, a guy that really helped us in 2018 and ’19. A guy that I look up to. He’s one of the best in the history of the game and to manage against somebody like that is a privilege.”

Much like the Twins series, the Red Sox will face their share of proven pitchers with Dallas Keuchel set to pitch Saturday, followed by Lucas Giolito Sunday and Carlos Rodón Monday. Rodón threw a no-hitter against the Indians Wednesday night.

The Red Sox are geared for the challenge but also understand it’s just one series in a marathon of a season. Alex Verdugo, who hasn’t seen a lot of the pitchers in the American League after spending the beginning part of his career in the , is using this series, in part, to get a good look.

“It’s going to be great,” Verdugo said. “It’s always one of those things, you face these really good pitchers, you see these guys that are having a lot of success against people. And at the end of the day, I think, you know, for me, I want to face the best of the best.”

The Sox gave J.D. Martinez Thursday off, but he will be back in the lineup Friday. As for Verdugo, he couldn’t help but remind the public of the type of streak the Sox have been on at the plate.

“We bang,” Verdugo said. “We’re going to swing. We’re going to put up good at-bats. If anything, I have confidence that we’re going to bring those pitch counts for those guys up and we’ll get them out relatively early.”

Dangerous lineup

After a cold start to the season, hitting coach is pleased with the offensive production lately. He’s also pleased with the amount of dialogue the players have about hitting during their downtime, which brings back memories of the 2018 club.

“Guys were not afraid to talk hitting, and not afraid to share opinions, share how they feel in the batter’s box,” Hyers said of the team, before pivoting to the current roster. “That’s what we’re trying to accomplish, that goal. It started in . It’s a group that, you know, has a lot of depth, and a lot of experience.”

The batting order, Hyers said, top to bottom has balance.

“It’s fun to watch the depth we have all the way up and down the lineup,” Hyers said. “At the bottom of our lineup, we have at times, and then , who just doesn’t give pitchers relief. The [ has] to make quality pitches or you know, we can do some damage.”

A pleasant surprise has been , who had one of the Sox’ four hits Thursday, a double off the base of the left-field wall. Arroyo is 10 for 32 (.313) and is confident at the plate.

“The thing that is impressive is how he uses the whole field,” Hyers said. “I think that’s when he’s at his best. And I think he’s more comfortable doing that now.”

Pivetta up next

Nick Pivetta will take the ball for the Red Sox Friday. In two starts, Pivetta has a 3.27 ERA. He has won all four of his starts with the Red Sox dating to last season … Triple A Worcester manager Billy McMillon said pitchers Stephen Gonsalves and are stretched out enough in case a starter is needed at the big league level on Saturday.

A lot of strange things happened on the way to the Red Sox’ winning streak ending

Peter Abraham

MINNEAPOLIS — Then there was the time the Red Sox were trying to win their 10th game in a row and the fifth inning was delayed by a siren.

It happened Thursday afternoon at Target Field. There was a four-minute pause because of a citywide test of the tornado warning system.

The umpires finally decided to resume playing, and when Hunter Renfroe stepped back in the box, the noise stopped.

That wasn’t even the strangest thing that happened in a 4-3 walkoff loss against the . Not even close.

Consider that the Sox were held to two hits over seven innings, then scored three runs in the eighth inning, only to lose in the ninth when Max Kepler’s tissue-soft single into center field drove in the winning run.

For the first time since April 4, the Sox lost.

Tough game, eh, Alex Cora?

“I don’t think it was a tough game at all, to be honest with you,” said the Red Sox manager. “We came back. We were down, 3-0, and we did everything possible to win the game.”

It went back to what hitting coach Tim Hyers said before the game about hearing conversations in the clubhouse that reminded him of the 2018 team and its sense of purpose.

So even though it was indeed a tough loss, there was no reason to pout.

“We ended up losing a game with a jam shot to center field,” said Cora, who was ejected in the eighth inning and still a little feisty afterward. “That’s not bad. That’s the way I feel.

“We just beat the American League Central champions three out of four.”

Cora had almost no choice but to get tossed when plate umpire Jordan Baker called a foul tip on a clear swing and miss by Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers on a from .

Replays showed the bat never came close to the ball. Cora suggested to Baker that he ask the other umpires for help. He rejected that idea at first before the crew huddled and imperiously decided the blown call would stand.

Cora was ejected and Andriese struck out Jeffers on the next pitch.

The umpires had quite a day.

Christian Vázquez was seemingly hit by a pitch in the second inning, rubbing his hand on the way to first. Cora and assistant athletic trainer Masai Takahashi came out to check on him.

Baker stopped play, but it was decided via replay that the ball had hit the knob of Vázquez’s bat. Because shortstop JT Riddle had picked the ball up and flipped it to first, Vázquez was called out on a dead ball.

“Our guy stopped because they called it a ,” Cora said. “I don’t know. It’s just … whatever.”

Bobby Dalbec had his own mental mistake in the second inning, turning down an easy out at first base to make a throw to second that pulled Rafael Devers off the bag.

That error led to two runs.

In the third inning, fielded a fairly routine ground ball and made a throw that somehow bounced twice — twice! — on its way to first and got past Dalbec.

It all started out so well, too. Kiké Hernández led off the game with a sharp single to center. But the Sox didn’t get another hit off Michael Pineda until the seventh inning when Bogaerts singled.

But Pineda got Vázquez to ground into a double play. The ball definitely hit his bat that time.

The Sox, trailing 3-0, loaded the bases with a hit batter and two walks in the eighth. With two outs, Alex Verdugo doubled in three runs on the 10th pitch he saw from Taylor Rogers. It was a tremendous, highly disciplined at-bat.

“Kind of locked it in and got real hitterish,” Verdugo said. “Stayed short to the ball.”

The Twins intentionally walked Bogaerts to get to Devers, who struck out. Adam Ottavino, shaky thus far in his Sox tenure, then retired only one of four hitters he faced in the ninth.

Verdugo was a consolation prize in the Mookie Betts trade, a player the Dodgers happily gave up to swing the deal. But he’s catching on with Sox fans, as are his teammates.

There was no mourning the dearly departed win streak.

“Another one starts tomorrow,” Verdugo said.

Red Sox acknowledge uncomfortable reality on Jackie Robinson Day

Alex Speier

As they took the field against the Twins Thursday afternoon, the Red Sox joined the other 29 major league teams in honoring Jackie Robinson. For a day, everyone wore Robinson’s No. 42 — retired across baseball in 1997 — to honor the pioneer who broke baseball’s color barrier and devoted his life to confronting racism and social injustice.

Yet the organization acknowledged an uncomfortable reality surrounding that celebration. The Red Sox are one of three teams in baseball this year (along with the Diamondbacks and Giants) that did not have a single Black player on its roster.

“It’s something that I think about almost every day if not every day,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. “It’s not something I’m proud of and it’s not something I’m happy about.”

The Red Sox aren’t alone in their concern about the lack of representation on their roster. Black players comprised 7.6 percent of major league rosters to open the year, down slightly from the 7.8 percent in 2020.

Still, such lack of representation is particularly uncomfortable for the Red Sox, who have in recent years confronted the franchise’s racist legacy as the last MLB team to integrate in 1959.

The Red Sox roster does feature 12 players from six countries or territories outside the , and the team is overseen by a Puerto Rican manager (Alex Cora) and a Black bench coach (Wil Venable). Yet while he expressed pride about the international diversity of his team, Cora — who noted the debt he owed as a player and manager to Robinson — acknowledged concern about the absence of Black players on his roster and throughout the sport.

“Obviously, it’s not a great look,” said Cora. “At the end, roster-wise, it’s not about white, Asian, Puerto Rican, Dominican. This is the roster we have. We are very multicultural. I’m very proud of that. Obviously, I don’t want to say as an organization but as an industry, we have to do better, of course, to be more multiracial … We know that.”

Last season, after the trade of Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers, Sox officials acknowledged their discomfort with the fact that they had just one Black player, Jackie Bradley Jr. Yet Bradley’s presence prompted a powerful conversation among members of the team Aug. 27, days after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Then-manager Ron Roenicke suggested that Bradley’s openness about his experience of racism was life- changing. In a show of solidarity, the team refused to play against the Blue Jays that day. The Jays, who did not have any Black players, joined the protest.

By contrast, the current absence of Black representation on the roster was felt as the Red Sox spent this week in the geographical epicenter of a national reckoning on race. The games at Target Field in Minneapolis took place near the ongoing trial of former officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, and where Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a police officer on Sunday — an event that led to the postponement of Monday’s game between the Red Sox and Twins.

On Tuesday night, Celtics star Jaylen Brown declined to talk about after his team’s win in Portland, instead speaking out against the injustice and indignity he felt in the wake of Wright’s death. Yet despite the Red Sox’ greater geographical proximity to the event, by multiple accounts little conversation took place inside the clubhouse about them.

“It’s just a fact that you are probably less likely to have pointed conversations about this in the clubhouse when you don’t have any African-American players on your team,” said Bloom.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been attention given to issues of diversity as well as racial and social justice inside the organization, or for that matter their clubhouse, particularly since the killing of Floyd.

More than 25 Red Sox players and coaches donated their game-day salaries on Jackie Robinson Day to The Players Alliance, a nonprofit founded by current and former players to increase participation of Black Americans in baseball. (Bloom is on the executive advisory committee.)

More broadly, the organization has been reexamining its practices and mission over several years, a process catalyzed when Adam Jones brought to light racist epithets to which he’d been subjected at in 2017. The organization took several steps after that episode not only to establish a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech at Fenway but also to challenge its own practices, introducing measures such as mandatory training about implicit bias, harassment, and discrimination.

The killing of Floyd prompted further examination about systemic racism at all levels of society, including and within the Red Sox organization. In its wake, the Sox formed the Social Justice, Equity, and Inclusion Committee — a group that initially consisted of weekly meetings of 12 employees from different departments.

Those conversations rapidly grew to include 150 members spread over 10 subcommittees covering such topics as mentorship programs, training, and educational programs for front office staff, as well as changes to hiring practices to seek more diverse backgrounds.

“The crux of the committee’s work is internal or inward-facing,” said committee chair Bekah Salwasser. “We’ve got to do a lot of work on ourselves internally as an organization before we embark upon external community programs or other initiatives. That is what we’ve been hyper-focused on since last June … [on] being intentional about moving the needle to make the Boston Red Sox a more inclusive and diverse space.”

The Red Sox feel they’ve made progress in that regard at top levels. The recent addition of LeBron James and Maverick Carter as limited partners of , the re-hiring of Cora and hiring of Venable (initially interviewed in the managerial search last October), and the continued presence of assistant GMs Eddie Romero and Raquel Ferreira have broadened who is represented.

“We have to continue to be deliberate and intentional with respect to diversity in the front office, but we’ve taken significant strides I would say in the right direction,” said team president/CEO Sam Kennedy. “I do think things have changed for the better since last summer, but in no way would I represent or indicate to you that we’re there. We obviously have a long, long way to go.”

If that assessment is true for the masthead, it is even more so when contemplating the player pool for the team and the sport. Locally, the Red Sox have increased their investment in The BASE — the Roxbury- based academy to increase athletic and educational opportunities for city youth — as well as in the local RBI program.

Yet such grassroots efforts are part of a long-term effort to broaden interest and participation in the sport. More immediately, the Red Sox lament the issue of underrepresentation on their major league roster, a development that is at odds with the spirit of celebrating Robinson’s legacy.

“To not have an African-American player on our major league roster is not good,” said Kennedy. “That’s something we’re keenly aware of, and it’s something we do talk about. It’s something that frankly I wish were not the case.”

Rhode Islanders, don’t go to Polar Park

Mike Stanton

Don’t do it, Rhode Island.

Don’t take the devil’s ride up Route 146 past Purgatory Chasm to ’s pleasure palace in Worcester.

Don’t listen to Lucchino’s smooth words as he gloats about his shiny new $157 million stadium for his transplanted Worcester Red Sox, then turns churlish and talks smack because Rhode Island wouldn’t finance his field of schemes to keep the .

As Lucchino took his victory lap around Polar Park last week, hard hat and hard heart firmly in place, he told the Globe’s Dan McGowan to “make sure you hand-deliver [your column] to Mattiello.” That was a jab at former Rhode Island House speaker Nicholas Mattiello, who killed a deal to finance a new stadium in Pawtucket and drove the Carpetbagger Sox up Route 146 to the Elysian Fields of Kelley Square.

It’s never good for fans when their local team becomes a pawn in a fight over money and politics. Guess who loses?

Mattiello rightly deserves blame for his role in killing the PawSox. Happily, voters sent him packing last fall, partly because of anger over the failed stadium deal.

But that doesn’t let Lucchino off the hook. His sense of entitlement and his disregard for what the PawSox represent contributed to the team’s demise. He disliked McCoy Stadium from the start. He didn’t appreciate the gritty charm that had drawn generations of fans for half a century to see future stars from Carlton Fisk to Mookie Betts.

To Lucchino, history was not baseball’s longest game — the PawSox defeating the in 33 innings back in 1981 and restoring fans’ faith in baseball amid a bitter major-league strike. History was building a new stadium, as Lucchino had done before with Baltimore’s Camden Yards and San Diego’s Petco Park; Polar Park turned out to be the most expensive in minor-league history. In Rhode Island, Lucchino and his partners overreached, demanding extravagant taxpayer support for a new ballpark on the waterfront in Providence. That antagonized Rhode Islanders and irreparably set back negotiations.

Ultimately, the ball may have gone through Mattiello’s legs — but a string of misplays by both sides led to that moment.

So now Lucchino hawks his new stadium and talks his Music Man talk of building community in Worcester, even as he peddles PawSox trinkets at bargain-basement prices. (”ALL SALES FINAL FOR PAWSOX ITEMS,” warns the WooSox web site.)

Lucchino can take his trolling to Purgatory Chasm, the nature-built wonder off Route 146 between Providence and Worcester. Various legends say the 70-foot deep chasm was carved by a glacier 14,000 years ago or cleaved from the granite bedrock by Hobomoko, a Native American devil. Perched above, like a luxury box overlooking home plate, is a rocky promontory called the Devil’s Pulpit.

In Pawtucket, we didn’t need a brew pub down the right-field line or a kids zone beyond left-center to connect families. McCoy Stadium was a pleasant place to be on a soft summer night, the sun sinking beyond the left-field grandstand and casting timeless shadows on the outfield grass as kids dangled cut-out milk bottles holding for autographs.

So don’t do it, Rhode Island. And since I won’t be making the devil’s ride up 146, maybe someone can make sure to hand-deliver this to Lucchino.

* The

Alex Verdugo’s heroics not enough as Red Sox’ winning streak ends at 9 games

Steve Hewitt

With the Red Sox’ backs against the wall and a winning streak on the line Thursday in Minnesota, Alex Verdugo stepped to the plate and produced the at-bat of the season to keep them alive.

But that’s where the magic finally ran out for the Red Sox on their incredible run.

The Red Sox trailed 3-0 with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth when Verdugo hit a game-tying, three-run double to left, but it wasn’t enough. The Twins rallied in the ninth, using a walk-off bloop single from Max Kepler to hand the Red Sox a 4-3 loss and end their winning streak at nine games in a wild one at Target Field.

Here are the takeaways:

Verdugo comes up big — again

Twins starter Michael Pineda had silenced the Red Sox’ bats, limiting them to just two hits over seven scoreless innings as the Twins took a 3-0 lead. All hope seemed to be lost until he was taken out of the game in the eighth, and the Red Sox promptly clawed their way back.

Hansel Robles hit Christian Arroyo with his first pitch, then walked Hunter Renfroe on four pitches. Three batters later, pinch hitter Marwin Gonzalez drew a walk to load the bases. That brought up Verdugo, a day after his heroics led the Red Sox to a doubleheader sweep.

The Twins countered with reliever Taylor Rogers for a lefty-on-lefty matchup, but Verdugo wasn’t fazed. The Red Sox outfielder went down 0-2 but battled with Rogers in what became a matchup of survival, laying off borderline pitches and fouling off multiple pitches to stay alive. Finally, facing a full count, Verdugo roped a high fastball down the left-field line. Twins left fielder made a mess of it, allowing all three runners to score. Tie game.

Standing on second base, the typically emotional Verdugo pumped his chest at his teammates in the dugout.

“If I took Adderall, that’s probably what I would feel like right there,” Verdugo said. “I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go. Anything close, let it go and let’s see what good things happen. …

“We live for those. The long ABs, the grind in it, the bases loaded, we’re down late in the innings, it’s those things when you’re hitting in the cage and offseason, you’re playing Wiffle ball with your buddies as a kid. Bottom of the ninth, two outs. You know what I mean?”

Though the Red Sox ultimately fell short of their 10th win in a row, Verdugo’s 10-pitch at-bat captured the team’s never-say-die attitude that was on display during the winning streak, in which six of the nine wins were come-from-behind victories.

“I think just the fact that we’re close at the end of the game is the biggest part of it and I think that’s the biggest takeaway from everybody,” Verdugo said. “It’s like, we went from getting 14 in a row retired, man, like a swing of the bat, we’re tied 3-3 and we got a chance to take a lead. It’s just one of those things, it’s gonna take all the way to that ninth inning and that last out. You can’t go too easy on us.

“We’re a team that’s resilient and we’re going to fight and I feel like we might start off a little slow, but we know that fourth, fifth, sixth inning comes that we all start locking it in even extra.”

Comeback falls short

After Matt Andriese escaped a jam in the eighth, the Red Sox had a chance to complete what would have been another special win when Arroyo hit a one-out double in the ninth. But Renfroe and Franchy Cordero struck out to end the inning.

The Red Sox had J.D. Martinez, who was resting, available off the bench, but manager Alex Cora said they would have only pinch-hit him for Cordero if there was a lefty on the mound.

The missed opportunity cost them, as Adam Ottavino continued his rocky start to the season, giving up a leadoff single to Luis Arraez and hitting Jorge Polanco with a pitch before Kepler’s blooper walked it off for the Twins.

Richards gives Sox a chance

After an ugly Red Sox debut, Garrett Richards has produced back-to-back solid five-inning starts that have more than allowed his offense to get a win.

On Thursday, the veteran righty had a rough second inning, throwing 37 pitches as a throwing error from Bobby Dalbec extended the frame and allowed the Twins to strike first on a two-out, two-run single from Arraez. But Richards bounced back over his final three innings to keep the Red Sox in it.

“He threw the ball well,” Cora said. “He gave us a chance. We don’t make a play at second base, but besides that a lot of weak contact. This guy, he’s going to give us a chance to win. Two runs, five innings, that’s not enough against us. We feel we can score with the opposition, and his last two have been solid.”

Red Sox Notebook: Alex Cora ejected after brutal call, Garrett Richards believes in ‘confident group’

Steve Hewitt

Alex Cora doesn’t often show emotion, but he had no choice late in the Red Sox’ loss to the Twins on Thursday.

The Red Sox had just tied the game on Alex Verdugo’s three-run double, and Matt Andriese was trying to escape a jam in the eighth when he clearly struck out Ryan Jeffers swinging for a crucial second out.

But home-plate umpire Jordan Baker completely blew the call, ruling that Jeffers foul-tipped the pitch. Replays showed that Jeffers didn’t come close to touching the ball, but the play was not reviewable. Baker was heard through television cameras, saying, “No way anyone’s going to overrule that,” and after huddling up with his umpiring crew, the call stood.

Cora was justifiably incensed as he came out to argue the call and was thrown out for his fourth career ejection.

“It’s just part of the game,” Cora said. “You saw the runner, he took off to first base. In ‘19 I didn’t want to get thrown out, I didn’t want to make a scene early on. You guys asked me all that stuff and there are some people that thought I wasn’t into this. Well, you saw it. I’m into it.”

The call didn’t ultimately affect the outcome of the game, as Andriese struck Jeffers out swinging on the next pitch.

Richards likes ‘confident group’

Despite falling short of a 10-game winning streak, Garrett Richards’ confidence in his new team wasn’t shaken. The veteran pitcher believes there’s something different about these Red Sox that he hasn’t experienced much in his big-league career.

“I told you guys earlier in the year that this was a sneaky good team, and we’re going to do our thing on a daily basis and at the end of the year, we’ll be where we are,” Richards said. “Everybody shows up every single day ready to win, not just here to play a baseball game. We’re here to win a game every single day. It’s a different vibe, it’s a different feel when you come to the field and everybody has the same collective thought. I’ve only been on a couple teams like that and it’s something that you recognize early on and it’s really exciting. …

“I’ve only been on a couple teams that I’ve had that process where it’s, we got beat tonight but we’re going to win tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. It’s just fun to be a part of. We’re a confident group and we believe in our abilities and we’re going to go out and try to win every single game.”

Cora wants better

As baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day on Thursday, the anniversary when players and umpires wear the No. 42 to honor when Robinson made his major-league debut and broke the color barrier, the Red Sox didn’t have any African-American players on their roster. Cora admitted it isn’t ideal, but said he still has a diverse roster and the game is improving in that area.

“I mean, obviously it’s not a great look, right, in the eyes of people but at the end, roster-wise, it’s not about white, Asian, Puerto Rican, Dominican,” Cora said. “This is the roster we have. …

“We are very multicultural. I’m very proud of that. Obviously, I don’t want to say as an organization but as an industry, we have to do better, of course, to be more multiracial if you want to call it that. We know that. We’ve seen it. That’s why the guys got together and they have the (players) alliance. They want to talk about it. They want to get baseball to the inner cities. We want to do a better job. I think we are on the right path. It’s not going to happen just like that, but I think with time, this is going to be better.”

Martinez ‘on a mission’

With an upcoming 10-game homestand that’s scheduled to begin Friday, Cora opted to give J.D. Martinez and Marwin Gonzalez a rest on Thursday. It may have been a welcomed break for Martinez, who’s in an 0- for-10 skid after his torrid start to the season.

Red Sox hitting coach Tim Hyers was expecting a bounce back season for Martinez after his uncharacteristically poor 2020, but he wasn’t expecting what Martinez did over his first eight games, when he produced seven doubles, five homers and 16 RBI.

“We know he’s capable of doing this. But this soon, it’s probably a little surprising,” Hyers said. “He’s definitely on a mission. The way he is focused. The way he comes to the park every day. He’s out to get things done. Obviously it’s a big boost for our offense when he’s rolling. It’s a big part of what we do and it really helps turn that order over.

“For J.D., he’s got to continue to do what he’s doing but also not get ahead of himself with trying to repeat those three-homer games. Just one day at a time. For J.D., it’s something where he has a great passion to succeed and when he doesn’t succeed it wears on him. I know for me, we have to keep managing. There are going to be some ups and downs, but it’s one step at a time and not get ahead of yourself.”

Red Sox lineup: J.D. Martinez rests as Sox look for 10 wins in a row

Steve Hewitt

J.D. Martinez and Marwin Gonzalez are on the bench for the Red Sox as they look for their 10th win in a row and another series sweep Thursday afternoon in Minnesota.

With an upcoming 10-game homestand that’s scheduled to begin Friday night against the White Sox, and some funky game times — including Monday’s 11 a.m. Patriots’ Day game — Alex Cora opted to sit Martinez and Gonzalez to rest for Thursday’s series finale against the Twins. Franchy Cordero will take Martinez’s spot as the .

Garrett Richards is on the mound for his third Red Sox start as he tries to build on a bounce-back performance in which he went five innings, which included four scoreless to end it. With a victory, the Red Sox would match a 10-game winning streak they produced from July 2-12, 2018.

Here are Thursday’s lineups as baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day:

RED SOX (9-3)

Kiké Hernández CF Alex Verdugo LF Xander Bogaerts SS Rafael Devers 3B Christian Vázquez C Christian Arroyo 2B Hunter Renfroe RF Franchy Cordero DH Bobby Dalbec 1B

Garrett Richards SP (0-1, 10.29 ERA)

TWINS (5-7)

Luis Arraez LF Jorge Polanco 2B Nelson Cruz DH Max Kepler RF 3B Miguel Sano 1B Jake Cave CF Ryan Jeffers C JT Riddle SS

Michael Pineda SP (1-0, 1.64 ERA)

* The Providence Journal

Bounce-back Boston: 4 reasons for optimism about this Sox team

Bill Koch

This appears to be a different Red Sox team that is about to begin its longest homestand of the 2021 season.

Boston dropped its first three games against the Orioles and went on to win nine straight. The return to Fenway Park comes after capturing six of seven games on a road trip to Baltimore and Minnesota. Only a walkoff 4-3 defeat against the Twins on Thursday afternoon prevented perfection.

The Red Sox were well on their way to hopeless by this point in 2020. They opened 6-18 and finished last in the , trailing even the woeful Orioles. Boston currently leads the same division as it enters a scheduled four-game series with the White Sox.

It’s early, yes, but there would seem to be several reasons for optimism. Let’s highlight four of them here in no particular order:

Starting pitching

This was the unquestioned sore spot a year ago. The Red Sox set a new franchise worst with a 5.58 ERA and were noncompetitive on far too many occasions. Boston penciled a host of Triple-A-caliber arms into its starting lineups and paid the price accordingly.

The Red Sox have posted a 3.06 earned-run average over their last 10 starts, and each outing has lasted at least five innings. turned in seven strong while beating the Rays last Wednesday and fired a season-high 104 pitches while holding off Baltimore on Sunday. Boston isn’t coming out of the blocks facing what feels like an immediate deficit every night.

The best thing you can say about Eduardo Rodriguez to this point is he looks normal. At times in 2018 and through most of 2019, that meant he was quite good. Garrett Richards and Martin Perez are capable veterans who have taken their respective turns without absorbing too much damage.

J.D. Martinez

The Red Sox slugger looked lost throughout 2020. The two months off he took after the March shutdown of spring training, his altered pregame routines and his lack of in-game access to video neutralized Martinez more than any opposing pitcher had since 2014.

That’s all changed this season. Martinez opened with 12 extra-base hits in his first eight games, the most by any player in American League history. The three home runs he drove in a Sunday win at Camden Yards had Pivetta marveling at his bat control. This is exactly the sort of lineup presence that allows the rest of the Red Sox to simply settle in and be themselves.

Alex Verdugo

Boston has been in search of a catalyst since trading Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in February 2020. He was the quintessential modern leadoff man, a wonderful blend of power at the plate and speed on the bases that put opposing defenses on their heels immediately.

One of three players the Red Sox acquired for Betts, David Price and cash considerations was Verdugo. His contributions come in a different way — a couple of notches less brilliant, but more extroverted and brash. When going well, he can spark a lineup and a dugout to action.

Verdugo’s 10-pitch at-bat and game-tying double in the top of the eighth inning Thursday was the latest example. He fell down 0-and-2 before extending Taylor Rogers to a full count and slashing a liner to left. Verdugo’s all-around energy at the plate and in the field plays well with a franchise that has generally been more reserved in recent seasons.

Alex Cora

Attitude tends to reflect leadership. Ron Roenicke is a nice man who was placed in an impossible situation a season ago. He attempted to empathize with the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and the push for social justice perhaps more than he managed a baseball team that was imperfect from the start.

The results should have been predictable. Roenicke’s one-year option for 2021 wasn’t picked up and Boston brought back Cora after his season-long suspension. The Red Sox were willing to trade a short-term public relations hit for what he could bring to the franchise over a second spell in charge.

We’ve seen it on display already. Boston remained calm despite the slow start and has flashed a certain resilience that harkens back to the World Series champions in 2018. Those guys didn’t lose all that often — this current group hasn’t either.

* MassLive.com

Alex Verdugo’s heroic at-bat not enough to save Red Sox as Twins walk-off with 4-3 win, snap Boston’s 9-game winning streak

Chris Cotillo

Well, they can’t win ‘em all.

The Red Sox finally lost Thursday afternoon as the Twins snapped their nine-game winning streak with a 4-3, walk-off win in the finale of a four-game series at Target Field. Max Kepler hit the game-winning single off Adam Ottavino, spoiling Alex Verdugo’s eighth-inning heroics and dropping the Red Sox to 9-4 on the season.

The Red Sox only mustered two hits in seven innings against Twins starter Michael Pineda and trailed 3-0 in the eighth before Verdugo -- the hero in both games of Wednesday’s doubleheader -- brought them back into the game with what may go down as the club’s most dramatic at-bat of the season. With two outs, Verdugo saw 10 pitches from Twins reliever Taylor Rogers before clearing the bases with a game-tying, three-run double to left field that made it 3-3.

Red Sox starter Garrett Richards continued the club’s string of effective starts, becoming the 10th straight Sox starter to last at least five innings despite running into a bit of bad luck in the second inning. After Miguel Sanó walked and Jake Cave reached on a play that was ruled an error by Bobby Dalbec, Luis Arraez put the Twins ahead with an RBI single -- his second of four hits on the day.

Both of those runs were unearned, so Richards finished the day having not allowed an earned run in five frames. He allowed four hits and struck out four in his third outing of the season as his ERA dropped to 6.00.

Sanó gave the Twins an insurance run with a deep off Hirokazu Sawamura in the sixth. In the eighth, the Twins walked two Sox hitters and hit another with a pitch to set the stage for Verdugo, who entered the battle having gone 0-for-3 earlier in the game.

Boston threatened in the ninth, as Arroyo hit a one-out double before Alex Colomé struck out Renfroe and Franchy Cordero to keep the game tied. Ottavino allowed a single to Arraez and hit Jorge Polanco with a pitch to set the stage for Kepler’s one-out single; the righty now has a 9.82 ERA in five appearances.

Siren delay causes stir

During Hunter Renfroe’s fifth inning a bat, a loud siren sound was heard in the area of Target Field. A message on the video board revealed that it was a test siren for “severe weather awareness week” in Minnesota.

Renfroe stepped out of the box and Pineda stepped off the mound to try and let the siren run its course, but after a few minutes, the teams decided to play through it. It eventually stopped and Renfroe walked.

Cora ejected

Red Sox manager Alex Cora was ejected for the first time this season after arguing a call in the bottom of the eighth. With two men on and one out, Matt Andriese clearly got Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers to swing and miss at a 1-2 pitch that home-plate umpire Jordan Baker called a foul ball. Cora came out to argue, but Baker conferenced with the other umpires and upheld the call and then tossed Cora when he argued again.

Andriese then struck Jeffers out on the next pitch.

White Sox up next

The Red Sox will fly home to Boston after Thursday’s game in advance of a 10-game homestand -- their longest of the season. First up are the White Sox for a four-game series beginning Friday night (weather- permitting). Here are the pitching probables:

Friday, 7:10 p.m. -- RHP Nick Pivetta vs. TBD

Saturday, 4:05 p.m. -- TBD vs. LHP Dallas Keuchel

Sunday, 1:10 p.m. -- LHP Martín Pérez vs. RHP Lucas Giolito

Monday, 11:10 a.m. -- RHP Nathan Eovaldi vs. LHP Carlos Rodón

Boston Red Sox notebook: Alex Cora ejected for first time in 2021, Adam Ottavino’s struggles continue; No starter named for Saturday

Chris Cotillo

Red Sox manager Alex Cora was in his office when Max Kepler ended Thursday’s game with a walk-off single off Adam Ottavino. That’s because Cora had been ejected an inning earlier.

In the bottom of the eighth, with the game tied, 3-3, Minnesota had two men on with one out when catcher Ryan Jeffers stepped to the plate. Sox reliever Matt Andriese got ahead 1-2, then threw Jeffers a sinking changeup that he clearly swung at and missed.

Home plate umpire Jordan Baker saw differently, ruling that Jeffers had fouled the pitch off. For a moment, the call cost the Red Sox a major out at a crucial time in the game. So Cora, who was only ejected twice in his last season as manager in 2019, made sure Baker heard his two cents.

“You saw the runner, he took off to first base,” Cora said. “In ’19, I didn’t want to get thrown out. I didn’t want to make a scene early on. (The media) asked me all that stuff. Hey, there were some people who thought I wasn’t into this. You saw it. I’m into it.”

On the NESN broadcast, Baker was heard saying that the call was his to make and that the other umpires were not going to overturn it. A quick huddle between the group led nowhere.

“He did say that. I was like, ‘Well, yesterday, you guys got together, so please, get together again,’” Cora said. “They decided it was a foul tip. Jordan stayed with the call and I got thrown out.”

The missed strike was not the first weird play of Thursday’s series finale. Three plays led to replay reviews, with two -- both in the second inning -- being overturned after another look.

Luckily for the Red Sox, Baker’s mistake in the eighth inning didn’t end up mattering. Andriese struck out Jeffers on the next pitch and Darwinzon Hernandez got J.T. Riddle to line out to third to end the threat.

“It’s a tough one, especially in that situation,” Cora said. “We come back, we’re scratching and we’re fighting. We know we got a . It didn’t work out right there, but then we got the strikeout and got out of the inning.”

Ottavino’s struggles continue

Quietly, Ottavino has been a liability for the Red Sox so far this season, allowing runs in three of his five outings. He gave up a single to Luis Arraez and hit Jorge Polanco to lead off the ninth Thursday before surrendering the game-winning blooper to Kepler.

In 3 ⅔ innings over five appearances, Ottavino has allowed four earned runs (9.82 ERA) on seven hits while walking five and striking out three. Though it’s now clear will be the closer -- even if Cora won’t say so -- Ottavino will still be tasked with a key role late in games and will need to get right quickly for the bullpen to be operating at its full potential.

Richards has second straight strong outing

Starter Garrett Richards has rebounded nicely from his disastrous Red Sox debut, going five innings in back-to-back starts. On Thursday, he allowed two unearned runs on four hits while striking out four in a no decision.

“He threw the ball well,” Cora said. “Good movement. He gave us a chance. We didn’t make a play at second base. Besides that, a lot of weak contact. This guy, he’s going to give us a chance to win. Two runs, five innings. That’s not enough against us. We feel that way. We feel we can score with the opposition. His last two have been solid.”

The damage against Richards came in the second inning, when he issued a one-out walk to Miguel Sanó and then allowed Jake Cave to reach on a Bobby Dalbec throwing error. Dalbec’s throw to second base pulled Rafael Devers off the bag; Arraez then hit a two-out, two-run single to put Minnesota up 2-0.

Richards wasn’t about to blame Dalbec for the miscue.

“I’m good with it, to be honest with you,” he said. “I want my guys behind me to be aggressive and to play to win. He didn’t hesitate, he fielded the ball and threw it to second base. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out but I’m fine with that. I don’t want anybody behind me playing scared.”

Cora monitoring Gonzalez’s workload, satisfied with Arroyo’s contributions

Utility man Marwin Gonzalez was out of the lineup for the second time in four games and the third time in eight games after starting both halves of Wednesday’s doubleheader. The Red Sox are actively trying to be cautious with the veteran, who has already played five positions this season.

“We’ve got to be careful with the workload for all those guys,” Cora said, citing Gonzalez and fellow utility man Kiké Hernández. “Christian (Arroyo) has been swinging the bat well. (Marwin) played two games yesterday, we took him out. We’ll give him today, see how the weather goes tomorrow but you have to do that. It’s very important.”

Making it easier to rest players has been the emergence of Arroyo, who entered Thursday hitting .310 with five doubles and a .793 OPS. Arroyo has been starting at second when Hernández plays the outfield.

“That’s why he made the team,” Cora said. “He can play short, which is very important, too. He swung the bat well in spring training. Last year, for this team, they were very excited and it was eye-opening what he did in a small sample size with them. He showed up in great shape, he’s putting great at-bats. He understands the game and he does all the little things. A good runner. It’s very helpful.

“The good thing is we’ve got capable guys,” Cora added. “It doesn’t matter who you put out there. You feel comfortable offensively and defensively.”

White Sox up next

The Red Sox flew home after Thursday’s game and will play again Friday, when they host the White Sox for the first game of a four-game series at Fenway Park. The matchup will bring the return of Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, who worked as a special assistant for Boston under Dave Dombrowski in 2018 and 2019.

“It’s going to be a different weekend but we’re ready for it,” Cora said. “Looking forward to seeing Tony on the other side. Managing against a Hall of Famer, a guy who really helped us in ‘18 and ’19. A guy that I really look up to. It should be fun. He’s one of the best in the history of the game and to manage against somebody like that is a privilege.”

Sox mum on Saturday starter; rain might change plans again

The Red Sox still haven’t named a starter for Saturday’s game, though is the most likely option to start. Of course, that’s weather-permitting. The forecast calls for rain all day Friday, so the Red Sox may need to readjust their pitching plans again.

“We’re going to have to make an adjustment,” Cora said. “That’s the way it adds up. We’ll see how it goes weather-wise. Conversations are going right now. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Boston Red Sox’s Alex Verdugo hits game-tying double in 10-pitch at-bat: ‘I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go’

Chris Cotillo

During his dramatic, 10-pitch at-bat in the eighth inning of Thursday’s loss, Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo felt as locked in as he could be. With the bases loaded, two outs and the Red Sox trailing, 3-0, Verdugo approached the plate knowing he had the chance to be a hero.

He was -- at least for an inning or so. Verdugo battled back from an 0-2 count against Twins lefty Taylor Rogers to hit a game-tying, bases-clearing double that looked like it might help the Red Sox extend their winning streak to 10 games. An inning later, reliever Adam Ottavino allowed a walk-off single to Max Kepler and the Twins won, 4-3.

“I’ve got to be honest -- I was completely locked in,” Verdugo said. “I just got a little lower in my stance, got right here, just trying to see the barrel out in front and to simulate just trying to keep a short swing and being direct to it. Lefty-lefty, it’s already a tough at-bat.

“If I took Adderall, that’s probably what I would feel like right there,” he said. “I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go. Anything close, let it go and let’s see. Good things happened.”

Verdugo, who saved Game 1 of Wednesday’s doubleheader with a game-ending diving catch and then led Boston’s offense with a two-run single and a homer to cap off the sweep in Game 2, was 0-for-3 in his first three at-bats Thursday. After Hansel Robles walked Marwin Gonzalez to load the bases with two outs, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli brought in Rogers to face the left-handed Verdugo. The outfielder had a feeling the Twins would make a pitching change at that moment.

“We live for those,” Verdugo said. “The long ABs, the grind of it, the bases loaded, we’re down late in the innings. It’s those things that when you’re hitting in the cage in the off-season, you’re playing Wiffle ball with your buddies as a kid... ‘Alright, bottom of the ninth, two outs.’ It’s those simulated things you always do your reps for.”

Rogers dominated the early part of the battle, throwing a fastball and a for called strikes to go up 0-2. Verdugo then took three balls and fouled off four pitches to stay alive.

“It also benefited me in the long run because now I’ve seen his fastball and his slider and I figured, ‘It can’t beat me,’” he said. “I’ve just got to stay direct to it and seeing those pitches, I kind of locked it in, got real hitterish, stayed short to the ball and (fought).”

At some point, the battle became a mental one.

“I think, at times, the more pitches you see, the more you start getting in your head and playing that mind game,” Verdugo said. “‘Oh, what’s coming? Is it this pitch?’”

On Rogers’ 10th pitch, Verdugo slapped a 95 mph sinker into left field and all three runners came around to score. Even though there are still 149 games to play, there’s a good chance the at-bat will go down as one of the best of the season for the Red Sox.

“Outstanding,” said manager Alex Cora. “He took some borderline pitches that were balls, fouled off some tough pitches and stayed on the pitch. He’s a good player. A complete player. He can hit lefties, righties and he’s a good defender. He’s still young. He’s learning the game. I love the fact that he’s engaged in the game from Pitch 1 all the way until the end.”

Kepler’s walk-off single gave the Red Sox their first loss since April 4, ending a spectacular road trip to Baltimore in Minnesota in unsatisfying fashion. Still, Cora was pleased with the effort from his team.

“I don’t think it was a tough game at all, to be honest with you,” he said. “We came back. We were down 3-0 and we did everything possible to win that game.”

Boston Red Sox’s Alex Verdugo hits game-tying double in 10-pitch at-bat: ‘I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go’

Chris Cotillo

During his dramatic, 10-pitch at-bat in the eighth inning of Thursday’s loss, Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo felt as locked in as he could be. With the bases loaded, two outs and the Red Sox trailing, 3-0, Verdugo approached the plate knowing he had the chance to be a hero.

He was -- at least for an inning or so. Verdugo battled back from an 0-2 count against Twins lefty Taylor Rogers to hit a game-tying, bases-clearing double that looked like it might help the Red Sox extend their winning streak to 10 games. An inning later, reliever Adam Ottavino allowed a walk-off single to Max Kepler and the Twins won, 4-3.

“I’ve got to be honest -- I was completely locked in,” Verdugo said. “I just got a little lower in my stance, got right here, just trying to see the barrel out in front and to simulate just trying to keep a short swing and being direct to it. Lefty-lefty, it’s already a tough at-bat.

“If I took Adderall, that’s probably what I would feel like right there,” he said. “I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go. Anything close, let it go and let’s see. Good things happened.”

Verdugo, who saved Game 1 of Wednesday’s doubleheader with a game-ending diving catch and then led Boston’s offense with a two-run single and a homer to cap off the sweep in Game 2, was 0-for-3 in his first three at-bats Thursday. After Hansel Robles walked Marwin Gonzalez to load the bases with two outs, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli brought in Rogers to face the left-handed Verdugo. The outfielder had a feeling the Twins would make a pitching change at that moment.

“We live for those,” Verdugo said. “The long ABs, the grind of it, the bases loaded, we’re down late in the innings. It’s those things that when you’re hitting in the cage in the off-season, you’re playing Wiffle ball with your buddies as a kid... ‘Alright, bottom of the ninth, two outs.’ It’s those simulated things you always do your reps for.”

Rogers dominated the early part of the battle, throwing a fastball and a slider for called strikes to go up 0-2. Verdugo then took three balls and fouled off four pitches to stay alive.

“It also benefited me in the long run because now I’ve seen his fastball and his slider and I figured, ‘It can’t beat me,’” he said. “I’ve just got to stay direct to it and seeing those pitches, I kind of locked it in, got real hitterish, stayed short to the ball and (fought).”

At some point, the battle became a mental one.

“I think, at times, the more pitches you see, the more you start getting in your head and playing that mind game,” Verdugo said. “‘Oh, what’s coming? Is it this pitch?’”

On Rogers’ 10th pitch, Verdugo slapped a 95 mph sinker into left field and all three runners came around to score. Even though there are still 149 games to play, there’s a good chance the at-bat will go down as one of the best of the season for the Red Sox.

“Outstanding,” said manager Alex Cora. “He took some borderline pitches that were balls, fouled off some tough pitches and stayed on the pitch. He’s a good player. A complete player. He can hit lefties, righties and he’s a good defender. He’s still young. He’s learning the game. I love the fact that he’s engaged in the game from Pitch 1 all the way until the end.”

Kepler’s walk-off single gave the Red Sox their first loss since April 4, ending a spectacular road trip to Baltimore in Minnesota in unsatisfying fashion. Still, Cora was pleased with the effort from his team.

“I don’t think it was a tough game at all, to be honest with you,” he said. “We came back. We were down 3-0 and we did everything possible to win that game.”

Boston Red Sox endure bizarre siren delay in loss to Twins: ‘Strange game as far at the outside stuff,’ Garrett Richards says

Chris Cotillo

The old adage that you see something new every time you attend a baseball game isn’t always true. On Thursday at Target Field, it was.

With Red Sox outfielder Hunter Renfroe batting against Twins starter Michael Pineda in the fifth inning, a loud siren started blaring in downtown Minneapolis. A message on the stadium video board revealed that it was a scheduled test of a city system.

“Please do not be alarmed,” the board read, revealing the test was in accordance with “Severe Weather Awareness Week” in Minnesota. It was scheduled for 1:45 p.m. CT, which happened to fall right in the middle of the finale of a four-game series between the Red Sox and Twins. Minnesota won, 4-3, on a walk- off single by Max Kepler in the ninth inning.

Renfroe stepped out of the box and Pineda stepped off the mound as soon as the siren started blaring. After a four-minute delay, they gave up, restarting play as the test was still going and the sound was still piercing ears throughout Minneapolis.

“I saw the announcement like two innings before,” said manager Alex Cora. “Honestly, we thought it was going to be like a minute. It took a while. At the end... I don’t know. It’s fair for both teams, I guess. It’s uncomfortable. We decided to play with it. It was just weird.”

Thursday’s game lasted three hours and 25 minutes, at least in part because of the odd stop-and-start nature of it. During the course of the game, there were three replay reviews and another prolonged delay during which Cora got ejected for arguing that a Ryan Jeffers foul ball should have been called a swinging strike in the bottom of the eighth.

“Strange game as far as the outside stuff,” said Red Sox starter Garrett Richards, who allowed two unearned runs in five innings. “An abnormal amount of replays, I think, this game. But that’s the game that we play now. It’s not the game it was when I first came up. You just try to evolve, you try to stay loose and do little things in between to keep yourself fresh.”

Red Sox lineup: Franchy Cordero at DH, J.D. Martinez out as Boston looks to sweep Twins, extend win streak to 10

Chris Cotillo

J.D. Martinez is out of the Red Sox lineup as Boston looks to sweep the Twins and extend its winning streak to 10 games Thursday afternoon in Minnesota. It’s a scheduled off day, manager Alex Cora said.

Franchy Cordero is the designated hitter, hitting eighth against Twins starter Michael Pineda. From left to right, Alex Verdugo, Kiké Hernández and Hunter Renfroe are starting in the outfield. Christian Arroyo is at second base and Christian Vázquez is catching Garrett Richards in the final game of a four-game set at Target Field.

Richards, who had a miserable Red Sox debut April 4 against Baltimore, bounced back nicely in his last outing against the O’s, allowing two runs on three hits in five innings Saturday night.

The Red Sox swept the Twins in Wednesday’s doubleheader to extend their streak to nine wins. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Boston Red Sox (9-3) vs. Minnesota Twins (5-7) · Target Field · Minneapolis, MN FIRST PITCH: 1:10 p.m. ET

TV CHANNEL: NESN

LIVE STREAM: NESN | fuboTV - If you have cable and live in the TV market, you can use your login credentials to watch via NESN on mobile and WiFi-enabled devices. If you don’t have cable, you can watch the game via fuboTV, in New England | MLB.tv (out of market)

RADIO: WEEI 93.7 FM

PITCHING PROBABLES: RHP Garrett Richards (0-1, 10.29 ERA) vs. RHP Michael Pineda (1-0, 1.64 ERA)

RED SOX LINEUP:

1. CF Kiké Hernández

2. LF Alex Verdugo

3. SS Xander Bogaerts

4. 3B Rafael Devers

5. C Christian Vázquez

6. 2B Christian Arroyo

7. RF Hunter Renfroe

8. DH Franchy Cordero

9. 1B Bobby Dalbec

TWINS LINEUP:

1. LF Luis Arraez

2. 2B Jorge Polanco

3. DH Nelson Cruz

4. RF Max Kepler

5. 3B Willians Astudillo

6. 1B Miguel Sanó

7. CF Jake Cave

8. C Ryan Jeffers

9. SS J.T. Riddle

Boston Red Sox’s Alex Cora: ‘I’m not a big-league manager or big-league player without Jackie Robinson’

Chris Cotillo

Coming up as a player in the Dodgers’ organization, Red Sox manager Alex Cora got a chance to personally know the family of Jackie Robinson and learn about the Hall of Famer’s life and career. Nearly two decades later, Cora is proud to join the rest of Major League Baseball by wearing No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day each year.

Cora, who was drafted by Los Angeles in 1996 and spent nearly a decade with the organization before being traded in 2004, recalled meeting Robinson’s daughter, Sharon, and participating in a charity event with her and then-teammate Dave Roberts on April 15 one year while he was playing for the Dodgers. Cora -- the only minority manager in Red Sox history -- idolizes Roberto Clemente, a fellow Puerto Rican, but he also feels he owes much of his success to Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947.

“Just thinking about what Jackie did, not only as a player, and as an athlete — unreal — but having the burden and the weight of all the people on his shoulders and to perform not only on the field but off the field, it’s amazing,” Cora said. “It’s unreal. As a Latino, you guys know how we feel about Roberto Clemente. We don’t have a Roberto Clemente without Jackie Robinson. That’s it. I’m not a big-league manager or a big-league player without Jackie Robinson. I’m very fortunate to know his family and it’s a special day.”

During Cora’s previous stint as manager in 2018 and 2019, the Red Sox had Black stars Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and David Price on the roster. Now, with all three of those players elsewhere, Boston currently has zero African American players on its current roster. Only 7.6% of players currently on MLB rosters are Black, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics of Sport, and Cora believes the league needs to keep pushing for more diversity.

“Obviously, it’s not a great look, right, in the eyes of people,” he said. “But at the end, roster-wise, it’s not about white, Asian, Puerto Rican, Dominican. This is the roster we have. We are very multi-cultured and I’m very proud of that.

“I don’t want to say ‘as an organization,’ but as an industry, we have to do better, of course, to be more multiracial,” Cora continued. “We know that. We’ve been seeing it. That’s why the guys got together and have the (Players) Alliance. They want to talk about it. They want to get baseball to the inner cities. We want to do a better job. I think we are on the right path. It’s not going to happen just like that, but I think with time, this will be better.”

For the Red Sox, the issue of race has been prevalent throughout the week in Minnesota. Monday’s game against the Twins was postponed due to the officer-involved fatal shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in a Minneapolis suburb over the weekend. The trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murder in the death of George Floyd in May, is taking place just a few blocks from Target Field.

Those events have led Cora to think about how he can help the fight against racial injustice.

“The first few days, they were very tough,” Cora said. “You get caught up on safety and everything that has to do with your group. Obviously, everybody has been thinking for a while about baseball here, but I bet — we didn’t talk about it here, we had the meeting three days ago — but I bet in the rooms, just watching the news and everything that’s going on, it puts thoughts in your mind. It’s a coincidence that we’re here and if this helps us, as individuals, to be better, so be it.”

Boston Red Sox prospect ’s uptick in velocity has continued in Worcester; but what about his mustache?

Christopher Smith

Right-handed pitching prospect Connor Seabold has continued to throw harder in 2021 than he did last summer after the Red Sox acquired him from the Phillies with Nick Pivetta for and Heath Hembree.

Seabold’s best pitch is his changeup, which plays like a reverse slider. His fastball sat around 91-93 mph in previous years. But he was at 95-96 mph with it during a Grapefruit League game earlier this spring. The uptick in velocity has continued at the alternate training site in Worcester.

“I really like him,” Worcester manager Billy McMillon said during a Zoom conference call Thursday. “He’s one of these pieces that I think is going to get to the big leagues and pitch there for a long time. I think he was maybe fatigued last year. His velocity wasn’t what I see now. I see more velo this year than I did last year. And he has a presence about him. He competes. I think he will be a pleasant surprise for us. One of my picks to impact the major league ballclub for a significant period.”

Seabold also throws a slider and . Worcester pitching coach and pitching coordinator of performance Shawn Haviland introduced the curveball to him at the alternate site last summer.

“Obviously in the minor leagues, you’re not the complete guy or else you’d be in the big leagues,” McMillon said. “I think that’s all the stuff he’s factoring in. The changeup is really good. His offspeed, secondary pitches, they are serviceable. But I think there’s still some more room to get some consistency with them. I say this jokingly but I kid with him that the thing I think he needs to work on most is his mustache. If he wears his mask, you won’t see it as much. But I kid him about that. More experience at the upper levels of Triple A is what I think he needs. I think he’s a special pitcher.”

McMillon said Seabold has a really good relationship Abbott.

“They’re constantly talking about that kind of stuff,” McMillon said. “And I think it will play at the next level.”

* The Worcester Telegram

Great expectations in store for McMillon, WooSox

Joe McDonald

WORCESTER — Normally at the start of every season for the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate, the manager will give an overview of the team’s expectations and goals.

This season is a bit different for a variety of reasons.

Not only was the minor league season pushed back one month due to COVID-19, it also allowed major league teams to hold alternate site camps.

So, Polar Park has hosted the Boston Red Sox before the Worcester Red Sox begin their inaugural season May 4.

WooSox manager Billy McMillon, who has been running the alternate camp, spoke Thursday for the first time this season and addressed many topics, including the success of the alternate site, upcoming games against the New York Mets’ alternate team, the new Polar Park, living in Worcester, and his relationship with Red Sox manager Alex Cora.

The Red Sox alternates will host the Mets in a three-game set Saturday (4 p.m.), Sunday (1 p.m.) and Monday (10 a.m.) at Polar Park. Fans will not be allowed to attend, but the games will be live streamed on WooSox Facebook and accounts.

“Playing against other teams is always a plus,” McMillon said. “Sometimes you get into, I don’t want to say, ‘bad ruts’ but seeing a different colored jersey out there is good. Plus, our hitters have a pretty good idea of what our pitchers can do and vice versa.

“I wish we were playing more than one team, but the fact that we get to compete and matchup against another team is a plus.”

Alternate camp has served its purpose, while keeping players sharp and ready in case Boston needs reinforcements due to COVID or injuries.

“Certainly not ideal, but our pitchers are able to face hitters, and hitters get to see quality pitching,” McMillon said. “The nugget, the thing we dangle in front of the players is that you’re a COVID positive test in the big leagues away from getting to the big leagues, or you’re an injury away just like in the course of a regular season. Guys have been putting in pretty good work and it’s about getting guys as close to ready as we can get them to go help Boston win.”

More than a few players have stood out during alternate camp this season. From a pitching standpoint, right-hander Connor Seabold is rightfully gaining a lot of attention. He appears to be big league ready in case the Red Sox need a starter. McMillon has been impressed with the 25-year-old’s development.

“I really like him,” he said. “He’s one of these pieces that will get to the big leagues and pitch there for a long time. Because of fatigue last year, his velocity wasn’t what I’m seeing now. I see more (velocity) this year than I did last year. He has a presence about him. He competes and he will be a pleasant surprise for us and he’s one of my picks to impact the major league ballclub for a significant period.”

Seabold still needs time to hone his craft and he’ll be given that opportunity this summer with the WooSox.

“He’s a special pitcher,” McMillon said.

Fine facility

While construction continues at Polar Park, the new facility has been baseball ready since the start of April. Players and staff have been raving about the state-of-the-art amenities and McMillon said he's thrilled with his new workspace.

“It’s going to be a good place to play,” he said. “The clubhouse is nice and the training room and weight rooms are nice. We’re going to be among the best in the league, as far as playing surface, and it’s going to be real exciting opening up a brand new stadium.”

Remembering a trailblazer

Major League Baseball celebrated its annual “Jackie Robinson Day” Thursday. All players normally wear No. 42 to honor his incredible life and career.

McMillon has a picture on his office wall that was given to him by his father of Robinson. McMillon said he's a bit disappointed there are no minor league games to hold a celebration.

“Everybody know the impact Jackie Robinson has had on the game and society,” McMillon said. “If not for him who knows how far we would have progressed, not only in this industry, but in society. I can’t extend enough gratitude for his willingness to be the scapegoat and all he went through in his first couple of years.

“It’s unfortunate we don’t get to have some sort of ceremony in front of fans because of the alt site situation, but it goes without saying his impact on American life for what he was able to accomplish.”

Cora connection

In Boston, Cora has the club playing inspired baseball. Many doubted the team’s ability, but Cora has the players believing in themselves and the team.

It appears that bringing Cora back as manager has, and will continue to, pay dividends. McMillon witnessed Cora’s impact first hand during spring training and it has translated into the regular season.

“Alex has a way of connecting with the players and we saw that from Day 1,” McMillon said. “It seems like everyone’s working off the same sheet of music. They’re going to continue to play well and the naysayers who had them picked middle, or bottom, may be surprised and may need to eat some crow.

“Alex is a good guy and our relationship is good . . . it’s good that he’s back in the dugout with us.”

While McMillon is focused on the task at hand in Worcester, the one thing he hasn’t had time for is finding a good Chinese restaurant. He’s taking suggestions.

* RedSox.com

Streak dies, but Verdugo shows fight persists

Ian Browne

It had been an uphill climb all day for the Red Sox, but they’ve established a trend during this thrilling start to the season of thriving in those situations.

Nobody enjoys the fight more than Alex Verdugo.

So even on a day the nine-game winning streak eventually snapped in a 4-3 walk-off loss to the Twins, Verdugo dug down for what will likely go down as one of the most memorable at-bats of the season for Boston.

The bats had been just about silent for seven innings when a hit-by-pitch and two walks brought Verdugo to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs, his team down by three runs.

Facing tough Twins lefty reliever Taylor Rogers, Verdugo fought, fought, fought and fought some more after falling behind 0-2. At one point, he had just about struck out, but his meek foul tip couldn’t be corralled by Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers. There was also the 2-2 sinker that Verdugo somehow laid off of, and it was a ball, low, by inches.

On the 10th pitch of the at-bat, Verdugo at least seized control of the fight and went to the opposite field in left for a game-tying, three-run double that knotted the score at 3-3.

There was joy on Verdugo’s face, and in the Boston dugout, as it once again looked like the Red Sox were going to do something special.

Even though the momentum didn’t carry over from there, it was the type of moment you see from a player and a team that have resilience ingrained in them.

You couldn’t be any more laser-focused than Verdugo got as that at-bat built to the 10th pitch.

“For me, I’ve got to be honest, I was completely locked in,” Verdugo said. “I got a little lower in my stance, trying to see the barrel out front, trying to keep a short swing, be direct to it. Lefty-lefty is already a tough at-bat. ... I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go. Anything close, let it go and let’s see what good things happen.”

For Verdugo, it was the longest at-bat of his career against a lefty.

“Obviously going in, you know the situation, bases loaded, we’re down by three and I’ve seen in the bullpen they had a lefty warming up,” said Verdugo. “I got up there and I don't think it's really how we drew it up, getting down 0-2 like that, but he made a good pitch, fastball away, I just wanted to see one and then I probably should have went on that slider that was middle in [for ball three]. It was go zone.

“But I just took it. I think it also benefited me in the long run because now I've seen his fastball and his slider, and at that point I figured, you know, it can't beat me. He made a couple of good pitches. I fouled off a couple sliders and then got a fastball out and over and was able to, you know, stay on top of it and drive it to left.”

Given the way things have been going for the Red Sox since they were swept by the Orioles to open the season, the only surprise is that Verdugo’s hit didn’t lead to a win.

In the top of the ninth, they had the go-ahead run on second with one out, and couldn’t push it across.

Adam Ottavino didn’t get the job done in the bottom of that frame, getting into an early jam. The streak finally ended on a bloop, RBI single by Max Kepler.

The loss didn’t seem to be one that would spoil the flight back to Boston. Just 13 games into the season, it feels like something special is developing with the Red Sox, who come home for a 10-game homestand, starting with the White Sox on Friday night.

“It’s been great, it’s been fun,” said Red Sox starter Garrett Richards, who allowed two unearned runs over five innings. “I told you guys earlier in the year that this was a sneaky good team, and we’re going to do our thing on a daily basis, and at the end of the year, we’ll be where we are.

“Everybody shows up every single day ready to win -- not just here to play a baseball game. We’re here to win a game every single day. It’s a different vibe, it’s a different feel when you come to the field and everybody has the same collective thought. I’ve only been on a couple teams like that and it’s something that you recognize early on and it’s really exciting.”

If not for Jackie, Cora wouldn't be in MLB

Ian Browne

Red Sox manager Alex Cora was proud to wear 42 on his mask for Jackie Robinson Day on Thursday, and even prouder to wear it once again on the back of his uniform.

Raised as a Dodger, Cora became fully immersed in all Robinson did as a trend-setter and the heroic way in which he did it.

“When I was with the Dodgers, I still remember, me and Sharon [Robinson], we did something for some kids early on during the day [on Jackie Robinson Day],” said Cora. “I think Dave Roberts was involved, and it’s very special.”

“Growing up in the Dodger organization, they not only talk about the history of the game, but they teach you a lot of things, and just thinking about what Jackie not only did as a player, he was amazing as an athlete, unreal, but having the burden and the weight of all the people on his shoulders and to perform, not only on the field but off the field is amazing. It’s unreal.”

As a proud Puerto Rican, Cora unsurprisingly idolizes legendary player and humanitarian Roberto Clemente. But he understands that Robinson was the one who broke the barriers for all minorities in baseball.

“As a Latino, yeah, you guys know how we feel about Roberto Clemente,” said Cora. “We don’t have a Roberto Clemente without Jackie Robinson. That’s it. I’m not a big league manager or a big league player without Jackie Robinson. I’m very fortunate to know his family, and it’s a special day.”

After trading Mookie Betts and David Price and losing Jackie Bradley Jr. to free agency, Cora is fully aware there are no Black players on the current Red Sox roster. But he sees a broad mix of cultures, and hopes that the amount of African Americans in MLB will increase in the coming years.

“I mean, obviously it's not a great look, right, in the eyes of people, but at the end, you know, roster-wise, is not about white, Asian, Puerto Rican, Dominican. This is the roster we have,” Cora said. “We are very multicultural. I’m very proud of that. Obviously, I don’t want to say as an organization but as an industry, we have to do better, of course, to be more multiracial if you want to call it that. We know that.

“We’ve seen it. That’s why the guys got together and they have The [Players Alliance]. They want to talk about it. They want to get baseball to the inner cities. We want to do a better job. I think we are on the right path. It’s not going to happen just like that, but I think with time, this is going to be better.”

Offense reminds Hyers of ‘18

Red Sox hitting coach Tim Hyers loves not just what he sees on the field from his offense these days, but what he hears in the meetings.

“It reminds me of the '18 team a lot. They just kind of came together. Guys who are not afraid to talk hitting and not afraid to share opinions on how they feel in the batter's box and what they're trying to do to accomplish their goals,” said Hyers. “It started in Spring Training. It's a group that has a lot of depth and a lot of experience. We have some guys who recently played deep into the playoffs, so I think a lot of our young guys like to hear those stories and hear how they attack pitchers.

“So when you have that, when you have a group of guys talking, they're engaged and they're passionate about what they do. That's a recipe for good things to happen, in my opinion.”

J.D. Martinez, who went 0-for-9 in the first three games of the Twins’ series after his torrid start to the season, got a rest for Thursday’s getaway game. Marwin Gonzalez also got a breather.

Franchy Cordero stepped in as the DH.

The Red Sox have an upcoming four-game series against the White Sox at Fenway Park with four different start times. They play at 7:10 on Friday, 4:05 on Saturday, 1:10 on Sunday and 11:10 a.m. ET for the annual Patriots' Day game on Monday.

“Yeah, stay away from [Martinez] and Marwin today,” said Cora. “It’s going to be a tough weekend as far as the times. We love the weekend but it’s a tough schedule so we’ll take care of some players over the course of it.”

Mo learned JR's history, then was part of it

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- Everyone knows that Jackie Robinson was the first African American player to wear No. 42 in the Major Leagues.

A lesser-known fact, however, is this: Who was the last African American Player to don the number that is now retired by all 30 MLB teams?

The answer: Mo Vaughn.

It is not a coincidence that 42 was the only number Vaughn wore in a career in which he ripped 328 homers and had a .906 OPS in 1,512 games -- more than two-thirds of them with the Red Sox.

Vaughn wound up as the last player in franchise history to wear No. 42 for the Red Sox, Angels and Mets because of a Seton Hall coach named Nick Bowness.

“Nick was a great guy, and he wore number 42,” Vaughn told MLB.com. “We kept getting closer over my years at Seton Hall, and he said to me, ‘You’re going to go to the big leagues someday and I want you to wear this number. But you’ve got to look at the history.’”

Vaughn had so much respect for Bowness that his words carried a lot of weight.

“Nick didn’t care who you were, where you came from, whether you were Spanish, black, white; he didn’t care [about] your wealth, your status. He coached you,” said Vaughn. “I think from him is really where I was actually told to understand the history and understand what had taken place. He just exemplified it himself. We talk two or three times a week to this day -- that’s how close we are as people.”

For that reason, Vaughn made it a point to not just know who Jackie Robinson was -- but to study up on him.

“That’s when you start figuring out that he was a really special individual,” Vaughn said. “He was so talented, but it wasn’t really even about talent. It was more about mindset and what can you withstand? [Brooklyn Dodgers general manager] Branch Rickey had to take the guy that he knew could withstand the onslaught of what was going to happen to him. A very well-rounded man is the only person who could do that.”

In 1989, Vaughn was drafted in the first round by the Red Sox, who had been the last MLB team to integrate in ’59. When Vaughn was called up to the Majors in ’91, he would be playing in a city with a notorious history of racial tension.

When Vaughn arrived for his debut on June 27 against the Yankees at Fenway Park, one of the first things he did was ask for No. 42 -- a request that was quickly granted.

“I didn’t wear it in the Minors; the numbers didn’t go up that high,” Vaughn said. “I think they went to like 39. I was going to jump out and wear 44 and then I kind of remembered what [Bowness] told me.”

As Vaughn navigated how to survive and thrive as a black athlete in Boston in the early 1990s, he thought of Robinson.

“Me and Ellis Burks, I think we were the era of black players in Boston that kind of paved the way for the other guys to come and be accepted,” Vaughn said. “We damn sure didn’t go through what Jackie Robinson went through -- I would never say that.

“[Burks] was there when I got there and he kind of showed me the way of what I had to do. I was probably a little more disruptive than Ellis. Ellis was a little quieter than I was. I think we were the beginning of getting a lot of the minority players to come to Boston and feel as if it was a place that anyone could play.”

Though Vaughn was the most popular Red Sox player in the 1990s before Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez arrived toward the end of the decade, he didn’t reach those heights without some growing pains.

“Listen, did I get hate mail? Yes, I did,” Vaughn said. “But I got more good mail than anything. When I came to that park, people stood up when I walked to the plate. It was a great experience. It was tough, but it was supposed to be tough. You played for the Boston Red Sox -- it’s not supposed to be easy.

“There were expectations before there were expectations. Now there’s an even greater expectation. That whole fan base really made me go as a player. It was never the same when I left. I couldn’t harness that again. It just wasn’t there.”

How did Vaughn make himself so relatable to Boston fans? Aside from being a stud in the batter’s box, he was a pillar in the community.

“I just reached out. Whether it was South Boston, East Boston, North Shore, South Shore, Dudley Square, Roxbury, down the Cape, I was everywhere,” Vaughn said. “That’s what it was supposed to be. I tried to reach kids everywhere, and that’s what it was about.”

Though Vaughn missed the championship renaissance of the Red Sox by a few years -- his last season in Boston was 1998 -- he beams with pride at how diversified the organization has become. He is proud that fans don’t see color when deciding who their favorite player is.

“Some people are put in those positions, and I think that was my contribution [to the Red Sox],” Vaughn said. “You look at David Ortiz right now. Does he sit up there with Tom Brady? Of course he does. Does he sit up there with Larry Bird? Yes, he does. Does he sit up there with Bobby Orr? Yes, he does. Is he on the mantle with [Carl] Yastrzemski and [Ted] Williams? Yes, he is. I think those are the things that I’m most proud of.

“You look at [Xander Bogaerts]. You look at Jackie Bradley Jr. Just look at all the people that have come through over the past championship years. Those were really integrated teams. Players from all different backgrounds and countries -- you’ve got white players, black players, everything. I think that’s the great thing for me watching the Red Sox when we won in 2004 and those other titles up to now. I’m so proud to have some history with them.”

* WEEI.com

Red Sox' run derailed thanks to Twins' walk-off

Rob Bradford

A lot of folks have compared the 2021 Red Sox' start to that of what this team did in 2018.

In that case, there was an Opening Day loss followed by a nine-game win streak. After one loss to the Yankees -- the Joe Kelly Fight Club game -- the Sox rattled off eight more in a row.

So, if this season is mirroring three years ago ... the Red Sox had their hiccup before their next run.

Alex Cora's club saw its nine-game win streak come to an end when Max Kepler's bloop single with one out on the ninth plated Luis Arraez for a 4-3 Minnesota win Thursday.

"We just beat the American League Central champions three out of four so I mean we’ve been playing good baseball," said the Red Sox manager. "We were down 3-0, put up good at-bats, tied the game. They ended up winning the game. It’s another game. We didn’t play great overall but we did everything possible to win the game and that’s what we take out of this one."

The game -- which concluded with Cora in the clubhouse after being ejected, and reliever Adam Ottavino openly showing his frustration after allowing the game-winner -- wasn't without hints of why this team has offered optimism.

After a fairly nondescript first eight innings -- in which the Twins scored two runs off Red Sox starter Garrett Richards and another on a solo blast from Miguel Sano off Hirokazu Sawamura -- the Red Sox appeared to start crafting their next script.

With two on and two outs, Cora sent up Marwin Gonzalez to pinch-hit for Kiké Hernandez. The result was a walk, loading the bases. With J.D. Martinez still available, Cora put his trust in Alex Verdugo against Twins lockdown lefty Tyler Rogers.

The hero from the day before came through again, turning in the at-bat of the season. On the 10th pitch from Rogers, Verdugo went the other for a bases-clearing double.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox, an inning later, Ottavino wasn't able to avoid ending the streak. But on the way to Kepler's game-winner, Cora did find himself ejected thanks to a horrible call from home plate umpire Jordan Baker.

With runners on second and third and one out in the eighth, reliever Matt Andriese appeared to strike out Ryan Jeffers. But Baker ruled Jeffers fouled off what should have been Strike 3, leading Cora into his argument. (Andriese would strike out the hitter on the very next pitch, on virtually the very same pitch.)

"Yesterday you guys got together, so please, get together again," Cora said of the umpires. "And they decided it was a foul tip, he stayed with the call, and I got thrown out. I would just say, the one yesterday, you guys saw it. Just one of those, it was a tough one, especially in that situation. We come back, we're scratching and we're fighting and we know we got a strikeout, but it didn't work out right there, but then we got the strikeout and got out of the inning."

Good news for the 2021 Red Sox: They have gotten the 2018 Alex Cora

Rob Bradford

Let's go back a few years ...

We all know what the 2018 Red Sox accomplished. The records and images are resurfaced enough to remind us of exactly what this organization is crawling back towards.

But what we really should be remembering is how good Alex Cora was that year. He was not only the right guy at the right time, he was the best guy at really any time. Cora was that good.

Resting guys a day after they hit home runs just to see somebody else go deep. Cutting ties with Hanley Ramirez before that dynamic got ugly. Taking immediate ownership of an early-season mistake (not putting Jackie Bradley Jr. in as a defensive replacement), checking off the all-important "accountability" box. Getting an entire roster wanting to play for him through communication and honesty. And then, most notable, pushing more correct postseason buttons than any manager in recent memory.

The next year? Yes, there were some issues and underachievement -- some avoidable, others not so much.

But what we have been reminded of through these 13 games is how good a manager Cora can be, even with a roster that offers an entirely different look as that 2018 juggernaut.

Let's be honest, how Cora was going to come out of his hiatus was a bit of a mystery. Mystery solved.

The version of this manager has been in many ways exactly what that team three years ago soaked in for those eight months. Yes, it's only a 13-game sample size but the evidence is starting to pile up.

Sure, there was that nine-game win streak. And, yes, the overall tone and tenor is 180 degrees from that two-month sad trombone of a season last year. But what really stands out are the little things.

Put it this way: There really haven't been too many -- if any at all -- of Cora's moves we can rant and rave about. And before you suggest that it's only been a couple weeks, think back to the tidal wave of debate Ron Roenicke's first 13 games of decision-making led to.

The latest example came in Thursday's loss.

With the Red Sox trailing by three runs in the eighth inning, runners on second and third and two outs, leadoff hitter Kiké Hernandez was due to face righty reliever Hansel Robles.

Cora made the determination that just because Hernandez had been classified as the No. 1 hitter in the Red Sox' lineup, having notched one of the two hits against Minnesota starter Michael Pineda, he wasn't the right guy at the right time.

So, Cora sent up Marwin Gonzalez.

Sure, Gonzalez hit from the left side, which helped the argument. But it wasn't as if the veteran was carrying the hottest of bats into his showdown with Robles. He was hitting just .212, coming off a really uncomfortable Game 2 the previous day in which he was pinch-hit for, himself.

But, sure enough, Gonzalez walked to load the bases. That led Cora to his next key decision: Not pinch- hitting for Alex Verdugo.

Normally, the thought of subbing in for Verdugo would have been brushed aside. But a few things suggested some managers might make a move. For starters, the lefty hitter had just two hits in 15 at-bats against southpaws this season, and the one he was about to face, Taylor Rogers, hadn't allowed a hit to a left-handed hitter all year. There was also the fact that J.D. Martinez remained at the ready.

Cora stuck with Verdugo. The result was one of the more memorable at-bats of the outfielder's career -- a bases-clearing double coming on the 10th pitch.

Be honest, at this stage in Verdugo's career, with Martinez available, a lot of managers make the move. Cora didn't. This was 2018 all over again.

There have been other examples, such as the move to insert Hernandez in Wednesday's game, sliding Verdugo over to left field just in time to make a game-saving catch. Pulling pitchers at the right time. Showing faith in relievers when many might not.

There is obviously a long way to go, but we have said all along that first impressions with this team would be a powerful thing. It certainly has been when it comes to their manager.

Want best reason to like Red Sox? They actually put ball in play

Alex Reimer

The Red Sox’s rally began with an anomaly in modern-day baseball: single, single, single. Then came a sacrifice bunt, followed by a base hit to shallow left field. Within minutes, the Red Sox put three runs up on the board, all without taking a walk or going deep.

It was so damn refreshing.

The streaking Red Sox are doing everything well right now. Their starters are solid, the bullpen is lights out, and the offense is piling up runs. They swept Wednesday’s straight doubleheader against the Twins, pushing their winning streak to nine. And the best part is, they’re doing it without relying on the three true outcomes. Once again, the Red Sox are an enjoyable watch.

Take Wednesday’s Game 1, for instance. The Red Sox scored all three of their runs in the second inning, with Marwin Gonzalez’s single to left igniting the rally. Then he advanced to second on a , before coming home on Hunter Renfroe’s knock to left-center. Franchy Cordero was next, and he punched another ball to left, advancing Renfroe to second. Renfroe scored on ’s sac bunt (thanks to an errant throw from pitcher Kenta Maeda), before Cordero came home when Christian Arroyo blooped a single.

It was a sequence that could’ve been taken out of 1967. Three runs scored, and the words “launch angle” weren’t uttered once. What a beautiful sight.

There are many reasons to fall in love with the straight up good Red Sox, but their most attractive quality is their habit of putting the ball in play. Through 12 games, the Red Sox are 23rd in and 27th in walks. That’s quite a shift from 2019 (I refuse to acknowledge the sad and abbreviated 2020 campaign as an actual season), when the Red Sox were fifth in walks, and consistently played some of the longest games in the league.

“It can’t be all slug and it can’t be just all singles in this league,” Red Sox hitting coach Tim Hyers said recently to WEEI’s Rob Bradford. "It’s a difficult balance but I know our team probably tends to lean toward the power and possibly the bigger swings to drive the baseball and make something happen with one swing, but as a group we still have to send that message and we still have to value getting on base and that two-strike approach, using the whole field, because of all the shifting and things in the game today, we have to take advantage of it at times.”

Indeed, the Red Sox feature plenty of power threats, but their best players are all complete hitters. J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts both have lifetime batting averages in the low .290s, while Rafael Devers is cutting down on his strikeouts. This season, Martinez and Bogaerts have struck out 20 times combined. For comparison’s sake, Twins slugger Miguel Sano has fanned 18 times by himself.

Entering the season, there was reason to fear the bottom of the Red Sox’s order would be strikeout and walk city, with Brian Dalbec and Cordero doing their best Joey Gallo impersonations on a daily basis. But thankfully, that hasn’t been the case. So far, Dalbec’s signature moment was his hustle last Saturday to beat out a throw from Baltimore’s second baseman, avoiding the double play, and allowing Cordero to score the game-tying run.

On Tuesday, Dalbec sliced the game-leading RBI double to deep right field — a quintessential example of going the other way.

“You can’t just try to bully the game and just try to slug the baseball all the time,” Hyers said.

Red Sox hitters are letting the game come to them. The end result is nine straight wins, and just as importantly, a fun style of play.

* NBC Sports Boston Winning streak was fun, but Sox must beware of trouble spots

John Tomase

The streak is over, and it was a hell of a thing while it lasted. Now comes the hard part: making it sustainable.

The Red Sox have given us so much to like over the last 10 days that it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. After an 0-3 start vs. the woeful Orioles that had some knee-jerk types declaring them "sneaky gross," the Red Sox started an annihilation tour that swept through the Rays and Orioles before nearly victimizing the Twins on Thursday.

Out-hit and outplayed all afternoon, the Red Sox still managed to pull even in the eighth inning on Alex Verdugo's bases-loaded double to conclude an epic 10-pitch at-bat, but it wasn't meant to be, and reliever Adam Ottavino got walked off in the bottom of the ninth of Minnesota's 4-3 victory.

Still, after taking three of four from a very good Twins team, the Red Sox return to Boston for a weekend series with the White Sox feeling good about themselves and their place atop the AL East.

"We just beat the American League Central champions three out of four, so I mean we've been playing good baseball," said manager Alex Cora. "We were down 3-0, put up good at-bats, tied the game. We didn't play great overall, but we did everything possible to win the game and that's what we take out of this one."

As well as the Red Sox have played, they are not a dominant team. They must do all of the little things to give themselves a chance, and the start to the season has proven it. Defensive miscues cost them two games vs. Baltimore, and then clutch hitting, opportunistic small ball, and steady defense keyed the winning streak.

That's not an accident. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom targeted players with winning pedigrees this winter, adding World Series champs Kiké Hernández and Marwin Gonzalez, as well as battle-tested reliever Adam Ottavino. Even outfielder Hunter Renfroe is coming off a World Series appearance with the Rays.

Adding them to a core of holdovers from the 2018 title like Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers, Christian Vazquez, Nathan Eovaldi, and Matt Barnes gave the Red Sox a stable base of veterans who know what it takes.

"It's going to take all the way to that ninth inning and that last out," Verdugo said. "You can't go too easy on us. We're a team that's resilient and we're going to fight and I feel like we might start off a little slow, but we know that fourth, fifth, sixth inning comes that we all start locking it in even extra."

There's a fine line between being able to come back and just expecting it to happen. Vegas put Boston's over/under at only 80.5 wins, and even if the club's internal projections were better than that, the front office recognized that a LOT would need to go right to reach 90 wins and a shot at the playoffs.

The Red Sox need to pitch, which they've done tremendously well. Since the Orioles lit up Richards in the third game of the season, Red Sox starters have thrown at least five innings in 10 straight starts and only allowed four runs once. Their 3.06 ERA over that span illustrates how they've kept the Red Sox in every game.

"We push each other," Richards said. "This is a unique group."

If there's a drawback to their performance, it's that they've only reached the sixth inning twice in the last 10 games, meaning the bullpen has been asked to record at least 12 outs on a regular basis. The expanded roster and 14th pitcher helps limit the wear and tear, but Cora will have to manage his relievers carefully if they're going to pitch that much on a nightly basis, especially considering that one reliever is coming off Tommy John (), one is debuting after a decade in Japan (Hirokazu Sawamura), two were limited by COVID last season (, Darwinzon Hernández), and one is 35 years old and coming off heavy usage seasons with the Rockies and Yankees (Ottavino).

Verdugo earns praise from Big Papi after big day vs. Twins

That's an area to watch, but it's not the only one. Offensively, the Red Sox cooled after dominant performances vs. the Rays and Orioles. They only scored in seven innings over four games against the Twins, and their offense downgrades when Martinez and Devers are staying in the ballpark.

The Red Sox won playing small for the most part in Minnesota, and while that's the mark of a good team, it also leaves little margin for error. They've already won two games in extra innings and two others that they trailed in the fifth. A 9-1 stretch can very quickly become more of a pedestrian 5-5 one if some of those close games go against them, as happened on Thursday.

The greater point is that they can't simply show up and win. They're good, maybe even really good, but not great. They'll need to stay humble and hungry to keep this thing rolling.

How good are the Red Sox? This crazy pitching stat will give fans hope

Nick Goss

One of the biggest surprises of the 2021 MLB season has been the excellent performance of the Boston Red Sox pitching staff.

Boston's offensive prowess was expected as the team's lineup boasts some very talented hitters, most notably J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers.

The pitching staff did not have the same high expectations, but it has played an important role in the team's nine-game win streak.

The Red Sox have a team ERA of 3.67 through 12 games, which ranks No. 6 among the 15 American League teams. From a historical perspective, it bodes pretty well for Boston's chances of being a legit contender in 2021.

How so? Check out this tweet from the Red Sox' official stats account on Twitter:

The Red Sox have a 3.67 ERA through 12 games.

The last three seasons in which Sox pitchers had an ERA of 3.75 or lower through 12 team games were 2018 (won WS), 2013 (won WS), and 2007 (won WS).

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this stat is the Red Sox are pitching so well in 2021 despite the lack of a true ace in the rotation. That said, you could argue Eduardo Rodriguez is pretty close to an ace, and he's off to a fantastic start with a 2-0 record, a 3.60 ERA and 12 strikeouts over 10 innings.

While it's understandable to be excited over the early success of Red Sox pitchers, it's a very long season and we need to see this staff perform at -- or near -- this level on a consistent basis before getting too optimistic about playoff baseball returning to Fenway Park.

* BostonSportsJournal.com

Final: Twins 4, Red Sox 3

Sean McAdam

Not all comeback stories have happy endings.

The Red Sox rallied gamely in the eighth inning to wipe out a 3-0 deficit on bases-clearing double from Alex Verdugo. But an inning later, the Twins used a single, a walk and a blooper into center to walk off the Red Sox 4-3, snapping their nine-game winning streak.

The loss was the first on the road for the Red Sox this season.

The Sox were stymied by starter Michael Pineda over the first seven innings, collecting just two hits before staging their rally against the Minnesota bullpen, culminating in a 10-pitch at-bat from Verdugo.

WHO: Red Sox (9-3) vs Minnesota Twins (5-7) WHEN: 1:10 p.m. WHERE: Target Field SERIES TO DATE: Red Sox 3-0 STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Garrett Richards (0-1, 10.29) vs. RHP Michael Pineda (1-0, 1.64) TV/RADIO: NESN, WEEI-FM

LINEUPS

RED SOX

Hernandez CF Verdugo LF Bogaerts SS Devers 3B Vazquez C Arroyo 2B Renfroe RF Cordero DH Dalbec 1B

TWINS

Arraez LF Polanco 2B Cruz DH Kepler RF Astudillo 3B Sano 1B Cave CF Jeffers C Riddle SS

IN-GAME OBSERVATIONS:

B8: Brutal call by home plate umpire Jordan Baker, who incorrectly calls a foul ball on what was clearly not. To make the team’s point, Matt Andriese gets Ryan Jeffers swinging again for a third strike

T8: What an at-bat from Alex Verdugo — a 10-pitch at-bat, capped by an opposite-field double into the left field corner, clearing the baes, and the Sox have come all the way back from being down 3-0 to being tied 3-3 with the potential go-ahead run in scoring position.

T7: Red Sox collect their first hit since the first — an infield single by Xander Bogaerts, extending his Target Field hitting streak to 16 games — but can’t do anything with the opportunity. Sox have had just one baserunner in scoring position for the game.

B6: The third pitch from Hirokazu Sawamura — a 95 mph four-seamer, running inside — is driven into the second deck by Miguel Sano and the Twins extend their lead to 3-0.

B5: Richards is at 89 pitches after five, and it’s assumed that it will be it. Strange outing, and two walks in the second didn’t help his cause. But some misplays behind him hurt, too. When you get down to it, not a bad outing.

T5: Hunter Renfroe falls behind 0-and-2, then takes four straight balls to work a walk. That’s the first baserunner for the Red Sox since Hernandez led off the the first with a single, ending a string of 14 straight retired.

T4: Red Sox unable to get anything going against Michael Pineda, who allowed a leadoff single to Kiké Hernández but has since retired the last 12 in a row.

B2: All things considered, getting out of that inning with just two runs scored is something of a win for Richards. But the fact that he needed 37 (!!!) pitches to get out of the inning means it’s going to be a short outing for him.

B2: Long, strange inning for Richards, with a lengthy review. Two-run, bases loaded single by Luis Arraez puts the Twins up. Richards has already thrown 28 pitches this inning.

T2: Strange at-bat for Christian Vazquez, who initially thought he had been hit by a pitch. Turns out, the pitch hit the knob of his bat, rolled out behind the mound and the Twins threw over to first before the play went to replay. Upon review, it was ruled that he wasn’t hit, and so, Vazquez is out on a 4-3.

B1: For the first time as a member of the Red Sox, Garrett Richards gets a scoreless first inning.

PRE-GAME STATS: The current nine-game winning streak is the 40th such streak in franchise history…The last time the Sox had a streak longer than nine in a row was July 2-12, 2018, when they ripped off 10 straight victories…During the current streak, the Red Sox have a +37. They’ve averaged 7.4 runs per game, batted .319 with a ,922 OPS. Their pitchers, meanwhile, have compiled a 3.11 ERA…The Sox enter this road trip finale unbeaten on the road (6-0). The only other times they’ve started this well on the road was a 7-0 road start in 1946 and 8-0 in 2002…Of their nine wins, the Sox have come from behind in six of them…They’ve won five games in which they trailed after the fifth inning or later, matching their total for all of the 2020 season….If the Sox can win Thursday, they’ll have their first four-game sweep of the Twins since July of 2000…Xander Bogaerts has a 15-game hitting streak at Target Field…The only visiting players to have compiled longer streak there are Jose Altuve (17 games) and Mike Moustakas (16)…In the first three games of the series, the Red Sox have allowed a total of five runs…This season, Sox pitchers have allowed three runs or fewer in nine of the 12 games this season. The Red Sox rank 6th in the AL and 11th in the majors with a 3.67 ERA…During the win streak, Red Sox starters have pitched at least five innings in every game and, for the season, 11 of 12 games….Before this season, the last time Red Sox starters went at least five innings was July 2019 (9 G, 7/20-28)…The last streak longer than nine games was in 2018, when they had a 10-game stretch….The Sox’ bullpen is unscored upon in the last eight innings in this series, allowing just one hit…Twins’ hitters are 1-for-25 against Boston relievers in the series….The Sox lead the AL in runs scored (72), doubles (32), batting average (.283), OBP (.343), slugging (.474), and OPS (.816).. They’re third in HR (16)….Lifetime, Nelson Cruz is just 5-for-31 against Garrett Richards while Miguel Sano is 3-for-10…Bogaerts is 9-for-29 with a homer in his career against Michael Pineda.

NOTES:

J.D. Martinez, who has slumped some in recent days after a big series in Baltimore, is getting the day off with Franchy Cordero serving as DH.

The Red Sox will need a sixth starter for Saturday at Fenway, and that choice will likely be Tanner Houck. But with bad weather in the forecast Friday for the homestand opener against the White Sox, the team’s pitching plans could be altered in a big way.

BSJ Game Report: Twins 4, Red Sox 3 – Walk-off loss snaps Sox’ streak at nine

Sean McAdam

All you need to know about the Red Sox’ 4-3 loss to the Twins, complete with BSJ analysis and insight:

HEADLINES

Ottavino can’t hold on: The Red Sox battled back late in the game to erase a 3-0 deficit, and seemed to have a new life when Alex Verdugo’s slashed an opposite-field, bases-loaded double into the left field corner to tie things. But no sooner had the Sox tied it that Adam Ottavino opened the door for the Twins an inning later. Coming into a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, Ottavino quickly yielded a leadoff single followed by a walk, putting the potential winning run in scoring position. Sure enough, Max Kepler hit a flair off the end of the bat into shallow center, where no one could get it, and the Twins walked off the Red Sox to end Boston’s nine-game winning streak. Ottavino has made five appearances, and only one of them — in which he faced just one batter — has he had a clean outing. He’s also been scored upon in three of the five and has allowed 11 baserunners in 3.2 innings of work.

Richards grinds it out: This wasn’t the finest outing he’ll have, but give credit to Garrett Richards for limiting the damage. He endured a nightmarish second inning with a costly error behind him, but made sure that the inning didn’t get away from him. “I was just trying to limit the snowball,” said Richards, “and try to keep it as small as possible.” He also retired 10 of the last 12 hitters he faced and allowed just one hit over his final three innings. What did him in was a 37-pitch inning in the second, limiting how deep he could go. But on an afternoon in which he was victimized by some sloppy play and plain bad luck, Richards ultimately kept the Sox in the game and gave up just two runs (both unearned). If that’s an off-day for him, the Red Sox will live with that.

Verdugo almost the hero again: On Wednesday, Verdugo almost single-handedly carried the Sox to a doubleheader sweep, saving the first game with a spectacular catch in the ninth inning which prevented the tying run from scoring, then knocking in three runs in the second win. He seemed poised to do it again Thursday when, in a 10-pitch at-bat against lefty Taylor Rogers, he stayed alive by constantly fouling off pitches before producing a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the eighth. Alas, the Sox couldn’t complete the comeback, but Verdugo’s toughness won’t soon be forgotten.

TURNING POINT

The Red Sox could get nothing done through the first seven innings against Twins starter Michael Pineda, who, in between allowing a leadoff single to Kiké Hernández and an infield single by Xander Bogaerts to open the seventh, retired 18 of the next 19 hitters he faced. When Pineda was lifted after seventh, it felt as though a cloud was lifted from the Red Sox, who quickly staged their eighth-inning rally off the Twins’ bullpen. By the time Verdugo came to the plate for his big double, the Sox had as many men on base that inning as they had in the first seven innings of the game combined.

TWO UP

Christian Arroyo: In addition to a number of fine plays at second base, Arroyo also had a double and a stolen base as he continues to make his case as an everyday player.

Josh Taylor: After a few shaky appearances in a row, the lefty seemed to settle down with a scoreless seventh inning.

TWO DOWN

Bobby Dalbec: The first baseman made a nice play to cut down a run at the plate, but he also made a costly throwing error that led to two unearned runs and was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts at the plate.

Rafael Devers: Like J.D. Martinez, Devers has cooled in a hurry. Following his five homers in four games, he was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, including a called third strike with two runners on base following Verdugo’s double.

QUOTE OF NOTE

“If I took Adderall, that’s probably would it would feel like.” Alex Verdugo on his epic 10-pitch at-bat which ended with a bases-clearing double in the eighth inning.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

With an infield single in the seventh inning, Xander Bogaerts extended his hitting streak at Target Field to 16 games.

The Red Sox have lost just four games and Garrett Richards has started two of them.

Christian Arroyo’s double in the ninth inning was his sixth of the season.

The homer allowed by Hirokazu Sawamura in the sixth was just the second allowed by the Red Sox bullpen this season. It was also the first run allowed by any Red Sox reliever in the series.

The loss also snapped Boston’s six-game winning streak on the road.

UP NEXT: The Red Sox come home to start a 10-game homestand and host the Chicago White Sox at 7:10 with RHP Nick Pivetta (2-0, 3.27) vs. TBA.

Even in defeat, Red Sox make their point

Sean McAdam

There are, to be sure, no moral victories in the standings. A loss is a loss, no matter how valiant the effort, how seemingly unfair the result. And, as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Still, even as the Red Sox’ winning streak came to an end at Target Field, an inning after they had gamely erased a three-run deficit in the eighth, there was the feeling that there was virtue in defeat.

Quizzed about what appeared to be a “tough” loss, Alex Cora pushed back.

“I don’t think it was a tough game at all, to be honest with you,” said Cora after the Minnesota Twins claimed a 4-3 walk-off win in the bottom of the ninth. “We came back. We were down 3-0 and we did everything possible to win that game. The ‘tough’ part, I don’t agree with you. We ended up losing the game, on a jam shot to center field. That’s not bad.

“We just beat the American League Central champions three of four. We’ve been playing good baseball. We had good at-bats, we tied the game. They ended up winning the game. But it’s just another game. We didn’t play great overall, but we did everything possible to win the game. That’s what we take out of this one.”

It might be have easy for the Red Sox to feel a bit sorry for themselves. They had, indeed, fought back and pulled even, only to hand the lead back the following inning. But instead of wallowing in their misfortune, the Sox gave themselves some credit … and moved on.

For seven innings, the Red Sox had been stymied by Michael Pineda. The same team which had averaged better than seven runs per contest over the course of their nine-game winning streak was limited to two singles — one, the infield variety — and one walk over the first seven innings.

But when Pineda was lifted, the Red Sox treated it like some sort of jail break. Immediately, the offense stirred as they managed to load the bases off a parade of Twins relievers. Alex Verdugo, in an epic at-bat, battled back from an 0-and-2 hole to run the count full, then barely hung on, fouling off pitch after pitch, before slapping an opposite-field double into the left field corner, scoring three and pulling the Sox even.

It didn’t last on the scoreboard, but the comeback could linger with the Sox for a while and pay dividends later.

“Everybody shows up every single day, ready to win,” said starter Garrett Richards, who had a battle of his own to get through a 37-pitch second inning and keep the Twins to just two unearned runs. “We’re not just here to play a baseball game. We’re here to win a game, every single day. It’s a different vibe, it’s a different feel, when you come to the field and everybody has the same collective thought. I’ve only been on a couple of teams like that. It’s something that you recognize early on and it’s really exciting.”

If nothing else, the Red Sox have served notice to the rest of the league that this year is different. These Red Sox will scrap and fight and come back. Not every game will yield a win, but to beat them, you will have your work cut out for you.

Twice, they’ve come back and won games in which they were trailing in the ninth inning. Of their nine wins, five have been comebacks.

Whether they’ve taken on the personality of their prodigal manager, or this is a manifestation of adding so many players from outside the organization, who knows?

But the gauntlet has already been thrown down.

Again, such statements of will won’t help their won-loss record. But it’s already evident that it’s positively impacted their confidence.

“We’re a team that’s resilient,” boasted Verdugo. “You can’t go easy on us. We’re going to fight.”

“This team stays in the moment,” said Richards, “from the first pitch to the last pitch and then it’s on to the next one. It’s been special to kind of see that. I’ve only been on a few teams that have had that thought process, where it’s, ‘Oh, we got beat tonight, but we’re going to win tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter.’ It’s fun to be a part of. We’re a confident group and we believe in our abilities and we’re going to go out and try to win every single game.”

On Thursday, they fell short. But Friday already beckons.

“I told everybody, ‘I know this was a tough one,’ ” conceded Verdugo of the end of one winning streak, ” ‘but another one starts tomorrow.”’

* The Athletic

Red Sox finally lose but show a resilience that has long been lacking

Jen McCaffrey

Two errors, an ominous siren that caused a delay, botched calls, an epic 10-pitch at-bat, a late-game comeback, an ejection — and, finally, a walk-off base hit.

After nine straight victories, it took a lot to bring down the Red Sox on Thursday. After more than a week of wins, the Red Sox finally lost another game on a day that seemingly had it all in Minnesota, ending with a 4-3 walk-off loss on a jam shot to center field.

The Red Sox entered the day with the second-most wins in the majors, trailing only the Dodgers’ 10. For eight innings, it appeared as though they’d go out quietly, a day after their dominant doubleheader sweep of the Twins.

But the one thing this Red Sox team has shown that the previous two editions lacked is resilience. It’s a quality that has been on display often, as six of its nine victories have been come-from-behind wins, and it was on display again in the eighth inning Thursday.

“You can’t go too easy on us,” outfielder Alex Verdugo said. “We’re a team that’s resilient and we’re going to fight, and I feel like we might start off a little slow, but we know that fourth, fifth, sixth inning comes that we all start locking it in even extra.”

With the Red Sox trailing 3-0, Twins reliever Hansel Robles plunked Christian Arroyo on the elbow to lead off the inning. To that point, the Red Sox had only two hits, one an infield single. Arroyo, who’s hitting .368 with a .400 on-base percentage over the past week, kept the pressure on by stealing second base before Robles walked Hunter Renfroe.

Robles got Franchy Cordero and Bobby Dalbec out before walking pinch hitter Marwin Gonzalez to load the bases. The Twins turned to lefty reliever Taylor Rogers to face Verdugo.

Verdugo quickly went down 0-2 before settling into a lengthy battle with Rodgers, fouling off four balls and running the count full before slicing a bases-clearing double down the left-field line on the 10th pitch of the at-bat.

It tied his longest plate appearance in 223 career games and marked his longest ever against a left-handed pitcher.

“Lefty-lefty is already a tough at-bat,” Verdugo said. “If I took Adderall, that’s probably what I would feel like right there. I was zoned in, locked in and I wasn’t going to let anything go. Anything close, let it go and let’s see what good things happen.”

At 9-4, the Red Sox have surprised just about everyone in baseball with an impressive urgency after an 0-3 start, winning their next three series. It’s that urgency that’s kept them in games late, even when they’ve been down, and given them confidence that no deficit is too steep.

“We just beat the American League Central champions three out of four,” manager Alex Cora said. “So I mean, we’ve been playing good baseball.”

The Red Sox had struggled at the plate through seven innings Thursday thanks to a strong performance from right-hander Michael Pineda, who retired 14 in a row at one point. It was a streak that ended after a bizarre four-minute delay because of a weather siren in the city, adding to the disjointed pace of play and frustration of several other long delays throughout the game for replay reviews.

Starter Garrett Richards gave the Red Sox five innings, allowing two unearned runs, as the Red Sox defense didn’t help him much. In the second inning, Dalbec, who’s been solid at first base, tried to get the leadoff runner at second base on a fielder’s choice, but his throw shifted third baseman Rafael Devers, who was covering, off the bag. Later in the inning, Dalbec cut down a runner at home, but the next batter hit a two-run single to give the Twins the lead.

The Red Sox stayed quiet until their score-tying eighth-inning outburst. In the bottom of the inning, Cora was ejected after arguing with home plate umpire Jordan Baker. Baker had already made some questionable calls, but Cora took particular exception when Baker ruled that Twins hitter Ryan Jeffers had made contact with a pitch, making it a foul ball, despite it being a clear swing-and-miss.

There was no mistaking that Cora wanted to keep the fire burning with his team after their rally earlier in the inning.

“In ’19 I didn’t want to get thrown out, I didn’t want to make a scene early on,” Cora said. “There are some people that thought I wasn’t into this, well, you saw it. I’m into it.”

In the ninth, Adam Ottavino allowed a single and hit a batter before getting dangerous Twins slugger Nelson Cruz to strike out. But Max Kepler blooped a single to center for the winning run to end Boston’s streak of improbable comebacks.

“We didn’t play great overall, but we did everything possible to win the game and that’s what we take out of this one,” Cora said.

Despite the caveat that it’s still early in the year, the Red Sox are beating good teams consistently and with confidence. Over the past couple of years, the Red Sox too often found themselves in quicksand, unable to pull themselves out. And that lack of confidence showed regularly, despite a lineup studded with All-Stars. Now, this much-different-looking group — one with much less caché than previous Red Sox rosters, — is playing to its potential, having taken series from two postseason contenders.

“(The Twins are) a good team, a team that made it to the playoffs last year,” Cora said. “We’ve already played two of them, right? We’ve played the Rays, we’ve played the Twins. We played good against them.”

There’s not much of a break coming up as the Red Sox head back to Fenway, with 10 straight home games on the docket, including the next four against a dangerous White Sox team that just got a no-hitter from starter Carlos Rodon on Wednesday night.

Rain is in the forecast for Friday, though, so the Red Sox might just benefit from a day off after an intense week of play. A loss after nine straight wins might seem deflating, but the Red Sox didn’t view Thursday’s game in that light and seem ready for the long haul.

“It’s great to go on winning streaks, especially this early in the season,” Richards said. “But it’s so early that we have so many more games to play. It’s a great mindset though. We have a collective mindset of winning every single game. It’s easy to say that, but it’s hard to go out there and do it every day. I really believe that this group genuinely comes to the field every single day ready to win a ballgame. I’m excited for the rest of the season.”

* Associated Press

Streak breaker: Kepler singles in 9th, as Twins edge Red Sox

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Max Kepler delivered the sigh-of-relief winner for Minnesota on the last day of a rough first homestand of the season.

The Boston Red Sox relentlessly kept the Twins from being comfortable all series.

Kepler’s bloop RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning gave Minnesota a 4-3 victory Thursday over Boston — stopping a five-game losing streak for the Twins and breaking a nine-game winning string for the Red Sox.

“It’s impossible to go out and play baseball and not feel it when it’s going really well or when it’s not going really well. It’s really how you harness that,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

Luis Arraez, ever the team sparkplug, let those emotions loose as he raced home on Kepler’s hit off Adam Ottavino (1-1) and belly-flopped into home plate.

“It’s a tough week, but we won the game,” said Arraez, who went 4 for 5 with a two-run single. “I think it’s a good start for us.”

The Twins avoided matching their longest losing streak in three years under Baldelli, a six-game slide from July 31-Aug. 5, 2020.

The Red Sox, who tied it in the eighth on Alex Verdugo’s three-run double, were on their longest winning streak since a 10-game run in 2018, the season they won the World Series.

“We ended up losing a game with a jam shot to center field. That’s not bad,” said manager Alex Cora, who was ejected for arguing in the eighth. “We just beat the American League Central champions, three out of four. We’ve been playing good baseball.”

Alex Colomé (1-1) pitched a scoreless ninth for the victory, despite a one-out double by Christian Arroyo. Verdugo capped a 10-pitch at-bat against Taylor Rogers with his two-out double in the eighth that made it 3-all. The Red Sox had loaded the bases against Hansel Robles.

Five times during their winning streak, the Red Sox rallied from a deficit in the fifth inning or later.

“It’s been fun. I told you guys earlier in the year that this is a sneaky good team,” said Garrett Richards, who stretched Boston’s streak of 10 straight games with the starting pitcher completing at least five innings. The two runs he allowed were unearned.

Michael Pineda allowed only two singles over seven scoreless innings for the Twins, who had a home run by slump-ridden slugger Miguel Sanó in the sixth.

Pineda’s career-best winning streak remained at eight straight decisions, a 15-start stretch with a 2.70 ERA dating to July 26, 2019. The big right-hander served a 60-game suspension for taking a banned weight loss drug, bridging the last two seasons.

Using his trusty slider to help tame the top-scoring team in the American League, Pineda retired 14 straight batters at one point. He walked one and struck out six, throwing 88 pitches.

“That was just a fabulous outing,” Baldelli said.

PLAY IT AGAIN

The Twins won two challenges in the second. Christian Vázquez had a hit by pitch become a groundout in the top of the inning, when replays showed Pineda’s fastball plunked the knob of his bat. In the bottom of the frame, Sanó was initially called out on a slide into second after a fielder’s choice grounder to first, but Arroyo’s toe came off the side of the base as he leaned forward to catch the relay. Arraez gave the Twins the lead, three batters after the reversal.

SERIES STUFF

The last time the Twins were swept in a four-game series by the Red Sox was July 3-6, 2000, at the Metrodome. Boston swept three-game series here in 2012 and 2013 and at Fenway Park in 2005, 2008 and 2014.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Red Sox: DH J.D. Martinez and IF Marwin Gonzalez were out of the starting lineup to rest, four games into a 14-game, 13-day stretch. “We’ve just got to be careful with the workload with all those guys,” Cora said.

Twins: CF and 3B were on the bench as a hamstring precaution. Buxton missed the Wednesday doubleheader, too, when Donaldson returned from the injured list in the second game. ... RHP Shaun Anderson was recalled from the alternate training site in St. Paul, a fresh-arm swap for RHP , then sent back after the game.

UP NEXT

Red Sox: Host the Chicago White Sox in a four-game series starting Friday. RHP Nick Pivetta (2-0, 3.27 ERA) will take the mound for the opener. The White Sox had yet to announce their starter.

Twins: Visit the for a three-game series beginning Friday. LHP will come off the taxi squad to make his season debut, opposite LHP (1-1, 7.00 ERA).

* The New York Times

A Major Change in the Minors: Baseball Moving the Mound Back

Tyler Kepner

Strikeouts were out of control. Changes in pitching techniques had resulted in batters swinging and missing like never before. To fix the problem, leading minds focused on the center of the diamond. The pitcher would have to move back.

The goal: “the restoration of the proper equilibrium between the two great principles of the game — attack and defense. With the pitcher reduced to the ranks, nine men instead of two will play the game.”

So said Francis Richter, the editor of the weekly Sporting Life, as quoted by the author Peter Morris in “A Game of Inches,” his book on the innovations that shaped baseball. Richter’s column ran in November 1892, but the words apply almost exactly to the modern game.

Major League Baseball believes that the product on the field is in crisis. The league’s declaration on Wednesday confirmed it: Starting in the second half of the season, the independent Atlantic League — in partnership with M.L.B. — will move its mounds back by a foot. This is not like putting a runner on second base in extra innings or making the bases a little bigger. This is fundamental.

The distance of 60 feet 6 inches between the pitching rubber and the plate was established in 1893. The National League — the American League did not exist quite yet — wanted to curb the growing influence of overhand pitching. Strikeouts had risen as high as 4.74 per game in the N.L. in 1884, but things soon normalized: The rate would not be that high again until 1957.

In the 1880s, baseball was dominated by pitchers like Boston’s Old Hoss Radbourn, shown in this photo collage of the team from 1889. In reaction to a surge in strikeouts, the distance between the pitching rubber to the plate was moved to its current 60 feet 6 inches.Credit...Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images When one cog in a machine goes haywire, it can lead to disaster. For baseball today, strikeouts are that cog. That’s why M.L.B. is terrified of the impact all those whiffs are having on the entertainment value of the game.

“I love baseball,” Jed Hoyer, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, said on Wednesday. “But the rules aren’t written on stone tablets.”

That’s true, though 60 feet 6 inches comes close. The last time pitchers worked from a different distance, the union had 44 states and Babe Ruth hadn’t been born. Changing the distance in the majors will be a tough sell to players, and maybe to some owners, too.

“The gut reaction is to say, ‘Well, how’s that going to work?’” said Tim Adleman, a former right-hander who pitched in the Atlantic League in 2019. “The mound’s been 60 feet 6 inches forever, and guys have based everything around the fact that that’s how far you throw down to home plate. I can’t say for sure, but it seems like that extra foot’s going to change quite a bit of stuff.”

For baseball, that is the point. Through Tuesday, batters were striking out at a 24.7 percent rate this season, an increase of 10 percentage points since 1992. The average time between balls in play this season has risen to almost four minutes. Triples, doubles and stolen bases — action plays that fans say they want, according to the league — are down. That is no way for an industry to attract the younger generation, the paying customers of the future.

Baseball’s timeless, slower pace is part of its appeal, and those who care about the sport have long worried about its long-term viability. Yet here we are, with franchise values soaring, lucrative TV deals everywhere and teams averaging more than 28,000 fans, prepandemic, for 81 home games per season. As popular as the N.B.A. seems to be, it plays about half as many games and averages 10,000 fewer fans for each, in much smaller venues.

So maybe baseball does not need to try so hard to manufacture change. But it is already using its affiliated minors to test other innovations this season — calling balls and strikes with an automated system, regulating pickoff moves and so on — so why not use the unaffiliated minors to study this one?

“It’s going to take a long time to actually get hitters to adjust their swings,” the Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer said on Wednesday. “I do like the idea that they’re trying to do something. I’m not sure I’d like to be one of the guinea pigs.”

Adleman said he would be concerned about injuries and would have to do more research before agreeing to return to the Atlantic League. In its news release, M.L.B. cited a 2019 study by the American Sports Medicine Institute that observed college pitchers throwing from longer distances and found no significant biomechanical changes that would increase risk of injury.

“If you’re a guy who’s in indie ball and you’re playing out your career or you don’t have that affiliated option anymore, then maybe it doesn’t make as much of a difference to you,” Adleman said. “But if you are somebody who’d like to pitch in affiliated ball or who’s trying to get back to the big leagues, then it seems to me like it’s hard to really feel comfortable doing that if the place that you want to be has the mound that’s 60 feet 6 inches.”

For M.L.B., of course, the issue is not the career prospects of pitchers in the Atlantic League. The new on- field blueprints may seem radical, but the architects include deeply respected people like the former outfielder Raul Ibanez and the former general managers Theo Epstein and Michael Hill. They are not known for irrational ideas.

“One thing I know about, from talking to M.L.B. on a lot of different areas, they put a lot of thought into some of the changes or experiments they make,” Cubs Manager David Ross said on Wednesday. “I think that’s why they’re starting these things. Pushing the mound back is a wait-and-see — I have no idea. But giving the hitters an extra foot is definitely going to benefit the hitters.”

Matt Blake, the Yankees’ pitching coach, said pitchers could benefit, too.

“There’s going to be second-order effects of that, and I think it’s hard to estimate what exactly that will look like,” Blake said. “But there will be both positives and negatives on both sides of it. The amount of room to create shapes and movement for a pitcher will enhance, you just might deaden some of the velocity from the distance that we’re talking about.”

For a rapidly changing game, there is nothing to lose by creatively trying to generate more action and reduce dead time. And as revolutionary as it might seem to move the mound back, even the greatest pitchers might sometimes find the feeling familiar.

“It’s funny,” Palmer said. “In your bad games, you thought the mound was at 61 feet, anyway.”

* The New York Post

Ex-Yankee Adam Ottavino off to awful start for Red Sox

Ted Holmlund

Some fans may be annoyed with Brian Cashman for the team’s 5-7 start, but one cash- saving trade he made this offseason is looking good thus far.

The 35-year-old Adam Ottavino — whom Cashman traded to the Boston Red Sox on Jan. 25, along with right-handed minor leaguer Frank German, in exchange for a player to be named later or cash — has struggled this season.

Early in the season, Ottavino had a chance to be the team’s closer, but Matt Barnes — who has not allowed a run in seven innings this season and is 1-0 with two saves — has essentially taken the job since returning to the team after he contracted the coronavirus in late March.

Nevertheless, Boston is hoping Ottavino still can be a key late-inning reliever, but the early results are concerning.

Ottavino, whose Yankees tenure ended on a sour note, already has allowed four earned runs and seven hits in 3²/₃ innings. In five appearances, Ottavino (1-1, 9.82 ERA) has allowed runs in three of those outings and has walked five and struck out three.

The Red Sox’s impressive nine-game winning streak was halted in Thursday’s 4-3 road defeat to the Minnesota Twins, and Ottavino was the culprit, suffering the loss.

He entered the game in the ninth and promptly gave up a single to Luis Arraez and hit Jorge Polanco to lead off the inning before surrendering the game-winning blooper to Max Kepler.

Ottavino — who signed a three-year, $27 million deal with the Yankees in 2019 — had a good first year as a late-inning reliever for the Bombers, when he finished 6-5 with a 1.90 ERA. But he struggled in September of that season and was dreadful against the Astros in the ALCS.

The 2020 season was a nightmare for the right-hander, who finished with a 5.89 ERA in 24 appearances — though much of that was because of one awful outing against the Blue Jays in Buffalo.