Take your pick of things from the Red Sox' 8-1 loss to the Tigers Thursday afternoon that might have irked Alex Cora.
The starting pitching was terrible, with Martin Perez managing just four outs before getting the hook.
The outfield defense was fraught with miscommunication and poor execution, at one point resulting in a dugout meeting involving outfield coach Tom Goodwin and the trio of Alex Verdugo, Kiké Hernandez and Hunter Renfroe.
The offense continued to be lifeless, failing time and time again to come through went it counted (going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position).
The Red Sox are 1-5 on their current road trip, having lost six of their last seven. And now? They head for a four-game set in Toronto for a revitalized Blue Jays team that are just three games in back of the Sox in the loss column.
So when the postgame media session came around, Cora wasn't about to mince words.
The first question: Can you talk about taking out Perez?
The answer? All that was missing was a stool in the middle of the clubhouse with the team gathered around.
"I can put it plain and simple for everybody, I don’t think you guys have to ask too many questions today," he said. "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. In Martin’s case, there was some soft contact, there was some hard contact, but there was a lot of traffic at that point. We felt like Phillips (Valdez) was going to do the job and he did the job. We kept it in check for four innings, five innings and then (Hansel) Robles. Offensively, we didn’t do much. I think with men in scoring position we struggled again. For us to pull this off, we have to play better baseball overall.
"It looks like right now, we’re a step slower, we’re not moving well and I know we’re in August and it’s a grind, but we have an opportunity to play in October. We put ourselves in this situation. People can doubt us or they can feel like this team can do it, but bottom line, we have to show up every day and play better. We’ve been working so hard to get to this point. I’m not saying this is acceptable because we’re going to go through stretches like this, but when you look slow and it’s not you’re into it, but you have to better at the end. Obviously, that’s a good team and they’re playing good baseball, but I think at the end, we have a good baseball team and we know we can do it. We have to turn the page from this series, we have to turn the page from Tampa and we have to go to Toronto and face a good team and a tough series. It’s a four game series and we have to play better if we want to pull this off."
Question No. 2: The effort?
“I’m not asking the effort … I just feel like we’re getting punched and right now, it’s tough. It’s tough," Cora said. "That’s the bottom line. I’m not saying we’re not trying. Probably we’re trying harder and that’s why it’s not happening. it’s just a matter of we’re not playing good baseball right now.”
Question No. 3: How tough will it be to turn it around?
“It all depends on us," Cora noted. "We’ve done it before, we’ve played good baseball for a long, long time. We know we have a good baseball team, but like I said, we just have to play better. We have to keep working, we have to help these guys out from this slump and it’s up to us, the coaches, everybody involved to get us going. That’s the bottom line.”
Question No. 4: Is rotation setting you back?
“It has happened before, but it’s just a matter of we want to pitch better, we want to play better defense and we want to play better offensively," he said. "Right now, I think in all aspects of the game, we’re struggling. Like I said, we have to turn the page. They beat us two out of three, we got swept in Tampa. Tomorrow, go to Toronto and start playing better baseball. We’ll leave it at that.”
Question No. 5: Do you have to make changes in the rotation?
“I mean, tomorrow’s going to be Nate. We’ll go from there," Cora added.
Question No. 6: Team meeting?
“We always do, we always do," Cora said. "We’ll leave it at that.”
Question No. 7: How about those problems with runners in scoring position and two outs?
“We’ve been bad the whole season," he said. "If you look at the numbers, it’s been hard, especially against lefties. I looked at it this morning and it’s like 48 at-bats, 50 at-bats in that situation and we’ve struck out more than half of the at-bats. We’ve been preaching, we’ve been talking about it and then at the end, we have to do it on the field. Maybe we’re trying too hard, maybe we have the wrong approach, maybe we’re giving them the wrong information. We have to figure it out. This is a good offensive team. This is a team that it gets energy from the offense, we know that. I think in baseball, when you score runs you get energy and we have to take advantage of those situations. 3-0 game, you score one here, one there, and one later on and its a tie game. We just need to get better.”
They sure do, and their manager knows it.