The Red Sox Fired the Wrong Guy!

The Red Sox Fired the Wrong Guy!

Why Alex Cora Should have been Fired and not Dave Dombrowski

by Bill Russo 

Eddie Rodriguez has won 16 games this season.  All the rest of the Red Sox starters put together in one large trash heap, have not even been able to double up on the big lefty’s wins.  

Porcello, Price, and Sale are a combined 25-27 (as of early September) and one less than half of those wins were gifts to a very shaky Porcello.  During one horrible stretch of five games in late July, Porcello gave up more than five runs in each contest, yet won them all because the ballclub scored ten or more runs in each of his five terrible starts!

"Steady Eddie" Rodriguez the Ace of the Red Sox

So the easy answer here is, the Red Sox will miss the playoffs this year because of failed starting pitching.

WRONG!

The Red Sox will fail to see October because of failed managing.  Alex Cora has proven himself to be totally ineffective in handing the pitching staff. Case in point, the game of August 3, 2019 at Fenway Park against the Minnesota Twins:  

Rick Porcello gave up a run in the first inning and two more in the third inning, by which time he should have been given a bar of soap and been told to take a shower and clean himself off!  

But since Cora doesn’t seem to be able to lift a starter until total meltdown, Porcello was left in for a disastrous fifth inning in which he gave up three more runs.
  

Oh by the way the Red Sox scored four runs in the bottom of the inning and would have been leading 4-3 but for Cora’s obtuseness!  The bullpen slammed the barn door after the fifth and did not allow a run the rest of the way.  This has been happening far too often lately.  You could look it up.

An old time newspaperman named Dan Shaughnessy who writes for Boston Herald or the Boston Globe reportedly  wrote a column recently that General Manager Dave Dombrowski will take the hit for this disappointing season.  The inference was that the writer had inside information from the Sox front office that Dombrowski will be fired. 

I read the Cape Cod Times and not the Herald or the Globe so I did not see the column and in fact I didn’t even know Shaughnessy was still working, or in Boston....but I do know this.  Dave Dombrowski assembled the team that won 108 games.

Old fossil or not, Shaughnessy was right on this.  A week after the original version of' this post......Dave Dombrowski was sick of hearing that he would not be back next season.  He shot it out with management and lost!  

Dave, according to published reports, said he wanted an extension of his contract.  The owners said 'no deal'! Things got heated and Dave quit.  An hour or so later the Red Sox 'Fired' the man who had just resigned! 

Dombrowski leaves the team after leading them to the post season three years in a row, and after delivering the best team in the entire 118 year history of the ball club - the 108 win 2018 season in which the Sox won the World Series for the fourth time in the new century.

Now back to Cora...……….
  

Cora mismanaged the team last year, but whatever he did worked out.  Cora almost singlehandedly lost the 2018 World Series by allowing the washed up Vulture, Craig Kimbrell  to pitch despite his ERA of almost 12 runs per nine inning in the ALDS.  

It was obvious to everyone except Cora that the ‘Vulture’, so named for the birdlike stance he adopts before serving up his pitches, was all done.  

Further proof of Kimbrell’s loss of ability is his 2019 ERA of 5.55 for the Chicago Cubs, who are giving him 16 million a year for three years!  Dave Dombrowski dumped Kimbrell because he knew the one time great was at the end of the road.

Same with Joe Kelly.  Fight Club Kelly is a loveable guy and fans really took to him, but he had a 100 mile an hour heater that had about as much guidance as a kindergarten class taught by Groucho Marx and his brothers.  

The one, the only.....Groucho!

Kelly threw more heat than Ol' Scratch himself, but nobody, including Kelly, had any idea where that ball was headed.  Under the principle of adding to your bullpen by subtraction, Kelly was let go by the Red Sox. For the Cubs in 2019 so far, Joe has an ERA of over 4.55 and a salary of almost 30 million over three years.

Shades of the Great Bill Lee, Fight Club Kelly

beating up on Yankees to the delight of the Fenway Flock.

Dave Dombrowski was criticized for giving Chris Sale a long term deal.  Chris performed exceedingly and went 29 and 12 his first two seasons with the Red Sox.  His ERA was far South of 300. He was a giant factor in the 2018 success.  Chris’ salary is about the same as Kelly and Kimbrell put together.  I think that based on what he’s done in the past, he’s worth the gamble, although his future may be as a closer, not a starter.

Well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  FIRE CORA. FIRE HIS PITCHING COACH.  

I’ll leave you with one suggestion for a former player who would make a great Red Sox manager.

Dustin Pedroia.

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Full Disclosure.  I never worked for the Boston Globe. I wasn't good enough.  I also never worked for the Boston Herald.  I did work for some small newspapers and though I had some minor success, I should never have the temerity to criticize by betters, meaning Dan Shaughnessy - but I do!

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