You can’t win the American League East in April, but you can certainly lose it. The Red Sox have stumbled and fallen out of the gate—marked by shaky defense, uneven pitching, and an ice-cold lineup — and they’re fortunate to be 8-10. After Monday’s 16-1 blowout loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, manager Alex Cora accepted blame for the team’s uneven start to the year.
“It seems like there was a team [in the Rays] that was prepared for the other one. The other one wasn’t prepared for them,” Cora told reporters postgame. “And that goes from the top all the way to the bottom. That wasn’t a good night for us. I’ll take the blame, because it seemed like our team wasn’t ready to go.”
The most surprising thing about the 2025 Red Sox is that they’re only two games out of first place despite having been awful in nearly every facet of the game. Boston is in the bottom third of the league in both team defense and offensive production, while their pitching staff ranks closer to the middle of the pack—though, outside of ace Garret Crochet, nowhere near consistently enough to lean on.
Despite the front office’s confident declarations this winter that the rebuild was over and the roster was ready to contend, Boston hasn’t shown a single strength. They look unprepared, unenthusiastic, and unmotivated — a team still searching for an identity, struggling to shake off the inconsistencies that have defined their three-year playoff drought.
Cora signed a three-year contract extension in July of last year. If the Red Sox begin to consider moving on from him, they have two strong in-house options in Jason Varitek and Andrew Bailey. Varitek, a respected voice in the clubhouse and former team captain, is the team’s game planning coordinator and interviewed for the San Francisco Giants managerial vacancy in 2023.
Bailey, the Red Sox pitching coach, has earned praise for his work with Boston’s pitching staff and brings prior coaching experience with both San Francisco and the Los Angeles Angels. Both are well-regarded inside the organization and would offer some continuity with a similar overall approach should the team consider a new voice.
“There’s a certain pride when you wear this jersey,” said shortstop Trevor Story after Monday’s game. “You’ve got to put it up. And we haven’t been doing that. We have to look ourselves in the mirror, and we’ve got to be honest with ourselves.”
Amid Embarrassing Start, Red Sox May Have Cora’s Replacement in the Dugout