The Civil War that’s been bubbling beneath the surface between Alex Cora’s and Craig Breslow’s philosophies on how to run the Boston Red Sox finally came to a head on Saturday evening. The rumbles started with this tweet from Jared Carrabis …
… And were confirmed within the hour across the baseball universe.
Noticeably not on this list is pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who aligns with the Breslow / Sabermetrics side of the coin.
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The timing of this seismic shakeup is very much worth noting. It comes just hours after the club’s most complete win of the year — A 17-1 beatdown over Baltimore — and has shades of the Rafael Devers trade, which occurred right after a sweep of the Yankees last June.
Zooming out a little more, the horrific 10-17 start the Red Sox got off to also feels like the perfect opportunity for those in the front office to clean house of the guys who didn’t see eye to eye with them. Despite all the struggles, the strong starting pitching is still very much in tact, and eventually that’s going to start to matter. So this could be a very tactical move from the front office to time Cora’s departure with what they see as the nadir of the early season. If so, it will be viewed as both brilliant and diabolical, depending on which side of the war you find yourself.
In the meantime, the Red Sox still have another game to play tomorrow in Baltimore, and taking the helm will Chad Tracy, who is getting promoted from his post in Worcester to interim manager. This makes sense as the roster is both filled with young guys who are very familiar with Tracy (Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, ect), and Tracy also seems very dialed into the in game details. Just today in Worcester he caught the Mets batting out of order:
We’ll have much more on this and everything else that comes with it here at Over The Monster in the coming hours and days.
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The next big item appears to be a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning that will include both Sam Kennedy and Craig Breslow. (Have your spiked coffee ready!)
Long-term, only time will tell if today marks the turning point in a fun, memorable season, or the beginning of a total circus act.
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