With two months into the baseball season, the rumor mill is starting to make some noise as teams decide whether or not to buy or sell for the upcoming July 30 trade deadline.
The Red Sox, who entered Thursday with a 28-28 record and 2.5 games out of the second wild card, are among those teams who could still go either way, but that has not stopped the rumors of reliever Kenley Jansen’s name being thrown around as a possible trade piece.
“It’s too early to be talking about the trade deadline,” manager Alex Cora told WEEI’s “Jones and Mego” on Thursday. “There’s a lot of teams in the middle. There’s the elite ones…then the rest of us in the middle playing .500 baseball. There’s a lot of baseball to be played and just watching how the trade deadline developed the last few years with the extra wild card, GMs work in different ways and are cautious with how they go about their business.
The next few weeks could play a significant factor in the direction the Red Sox choose to go, but whatever happens Cora added that teams need to show the front office that they are playing good baseball and there is one thing he has seen that stands out this year vs. others.
“I do believe this year the difference – I know we struggled against Baltimore pitching-wise - but we should pitch.,” Cora said. “We should be able to pitch. On a nightly basis we feel like there’s a chance we’re going six and win this ballgame. We’ve got [Nick] Pivetta going tonight against Tigers. He should go six and we should score runs and chance to win this game. I think that’s the difference with us this year compared to last two years.”
The Red Sox have the third-best ERA in the majors (3.29) and second-best in the AL trailing the division-leading Yankees. Opponents are hitting just .232 against them – fifth-best in the AL.
Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy even told The Greg Hill Show earlier on Thursday he believes the team has underachieved, although Cora wasn’t willing to go that far.
“I think we’ve played OK,” Cora said. “When you’re .500 you’re OK. …Bill Parcells says you are who you are and we’re a .500 team. Injuries part of it, but we’re not the only team with injuries. We just gotta play better against better opposition. Right now, we’ve got the Tigers who are playing .500, come here win the series that’s three out of four. That’s a big swing. Then we’ve got Atlanta for two then White Sox for four. Let’s concentrate on this week and see where it takes us.”