BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Boston’s Alex Cora won’t manage the Red Sox tonight when they open a three-game series against the visiting New York Mets. Cora will take the night off so he can attend his daughter Camila’s graduation from Boston College. Bench coach Ramon Vazquez will serve as the team’s manager.
“It’s going to be a very special day, one that I’m not going to miss,” Cora said. “And I will 100 percent miss the game for that. And I’ll do that any given day because it’s going to be a special day for us.”
Boston will enter the series with losses in five of their last six games. The Red Sox have lost 11 of their last 17.
“We’ve got to finish innings, we’ve got to finish at-bats, we’ve got to get better,” Cora said following Sunday’s 10-4 loss to Atlanta. “Does it feel like we’re way off? No, but it’s another loss in the column.”
The Mets have the lowest team ERA in the majors (2.86), and are scheduled to start right-hander Kodai Senga (4-2, 1.02 ERA) Monday. Senga didn’t factor in the decision in his only career appearance against the Red Sox. He allowed three runs (two earned) in 3 1/3 innings in that start, a 5-4 New York road victory on July 21, 2023.
Rookie Hunter Dobbins (2-1, 3.90) is scheduled to start on the mound for the Red Sox. The right-hander has never pitched against the Mets.
New York hasn’t scored more than three runs in any of its last five games and has been limited to nine runs during that five-game stretch. The Mets were held to three hits in Sunday night’s 8-2 loss to the Yankees.
The Mets also made two infield errors in Sunday’s loss, the second of which was a throwing error by Pete Alonso that allowed the Yankees to take a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning. Third baseman Mark Vientos also made an error in the first.
“On and off,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said when asked about his team’s infield defense. “I feel like we’ve gone through stretches where we’ve been pretty sharp, but there’s also been a few games where we’re not finishing plays or, you know, we’re not completing them. And even some of the routine plays. We saw today in the first inning. We can’t make a play there leading off an inning and, before we know it, we’re down two.
“This is something that we gotta get better and we will because we got good defenders there,” Mendoza added.
Rookie Kristian Campbell was not in Boston’s lineup Sunday. After a hot start, Campbell is 4-for-51 with one home run in his last 12 games. He’s played second base and the outfield this season but recently began working out at first base.
“It feels like sometimes he’s in between the breaking ball and the fastball,” Cora said. “Just a kid that went off the first month of the season and people are gonna start making adjustments. So now it’s our time to make the adjustment. And for some people, especially as the young kid, like he’s gonna take longer than others, but I truly believe that the quality of the at-bat is still there.”
–Field Level Media