Alex Cora Offers Blunt Assessment After Red Sox Drop Series To Tigers

The Boston Red Sox were handed a second straight series defeat Thursday after a 8-1 loss in the finale of their three-game set against the Detroit Tigers.

Boston has lost six of its last seven, including a four-game sweep against the Tampa Bay Rays, who currently have a 1 1/2 game lead over the Red Sox in the American League East with the New York Yankees now 4 1/2 games back of second place.

“I don’t know. I can put it plain and simple for everybody, I don’t think you have to ask many questions today,” Cora said as he started his postgame video conference with reporters. “We didn’t pitch. We didn’t play good defense. We didn’t hit. It wasn’t a good effort today. Where we’re at right now, we have to get better. That’s the bottom line.”

Martín Pérez failed to make it out of the second inning while Boston was 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox left 11 men on base in the loss, recording nine hits. Detroit compiled 13 hits.

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“… Offensively, we didn’t do much. I think with men in scoring position we struggled again. And for us to pull this off, we have to play better baseball. Overall,” Cora said. “It looks like right now we’re a step slower, we’re not moving well. I know we’re in August and it’s a grind, but we have a good opportunity to play in October. And we put ourselves in this situation. And people can doubt us or they can feel like this team can do it. But bottom line we have to show up and play better.

“… But at the end, we have a good baseball team and we know we can do it,” Cora added. “We got to turn the page from this series. We got to turn the page from Tampa. And we got to go to Toronto to face a good team in a tough series. It’s a four-game series and we have to play better if we want to pull this off.”

The Red Sox will open their four-game set against the Blue Jays on Thursday.

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