Alex Cora on Gerrit Cole plunking Rafael Devers: 'He hit him on purpose'

NEW YORK - With 13 games to go, the Red Sox' blood is boiling.

After the Red Sox' 7-1 win over the Yankees Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, their manager, Alex Cora, was steaming regarding the 91.2 mph cutter that Gerrit Cole hit Rafael Devers with in the first inning.

For Cora, the intent was made obvious in the fourth inning when Cole chose to intentionally walk Devers with one out, nobody on base and the Yankees holding a 1-0 lead.

The approach was born from Devers' well-documented success against Cole, having hit eight homers in 43 previous plate appearances.

"I wasn’t surprised at all because I felt like the first at-bat, he hit him on purpose," Cora said. "He doesn’t want to face him. That's the bottom line. You know, he told us, with the intentional walk, that the first at-bat hit he hit him. We’ll leave it at that. After that, he had bases loaded and had to face him, you know. But we took exception to that because it was loud and clear that he didn't want to face him. That first at-bat, now, after the intentional walk, we were like, OK, that’s what happened."

Cora continued with his passionate postgame, "I mean, we don't want to hit people on purpose, right? Yeah. I mean, he can get hurt, especially in the position they're in, right? I mean, they're 20-whatever gamess over. We hit somebody and somebody gets hurt, it puts us in a bad spot. We want the best players to be playing every single day out there. I want Aaron Judge to be out there every single day regardless of what he does against us. That’s when our sport is at its best. Raffy got hit. They can say whatever they want. The intentional walk was loud and clear, I don't want to face him. So the second pitch of the game against Raffy, you see it. It was intentional. I’m not gonna back off. It was intentional."