On Thursday, the Red Sox (19-19) host the Rangers (18-19) for a getaway day before hitting the road for a six-game AL Central road trip against the Royals (22-16) and Tigers (23-13) that gets underway on Friday.
With first pitch set for 1:35 p.m. ET, the Celtics devastating 91-90 loss on Wednesday night to the Knicks in game two of the Eastern Conference Semifinals was still fresh on the mind of everyone in the clubhouse on Thursday morning.
With Boston’s basketball team down 0-2 as they head to New York for games three and four, the wear and tear of a repeat attempt is emerging in a big way for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
That, combined with yet another disappearing act from beyond the arc for the NBA’s best three-point shooting team, and the Celtics’ repeat chances are a few breaths away from heading to hospice.
“Seeing the first Celtics games, how much have you thought since 2018 about what the difficulty of repeating means in sports?” The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier asked manager Alex Cora pregame ahead of Thursday’s rubber match with the Rangers.
“I thought about it yesterday when I was going home,” said Cora. “It’s very difficult. I still remember in the cage - I go back to the story, and guys talking about their at bats. ‘I need my at bats to get what I wanted.’ Right around there, I think Ozzie Albies signed a contract in ’19. And they were talking about, ‘Oh, this and that - I need to do this to make this.’ I'm like, ‘Oh s***, it’s a different mindset.’
“I didn't want to believe it, you know? I was very outspoken, like, ‘We're gonna do that again the same way, and it's gonna happen.’ Although, we switched the lineup. We put [Benintendi] to lead off and Mookie [Betts] hit second, and tried to make some changes. It didn’t work. But it's hard, man. It's hard.”
Whether it was a shift in focus or adjustments that didn’t pan out the way Cora had hoped, the the 2019 Red Sox regressed immensely from their championship team of one season prior, winning 24 less games (108 vs. 84) and finishing third in the AL East, missing the postseason one season after going wire-to-wire as the best team in baseball.
In that sense, the 2025 Celtics are similar to the 2019 Red Sox.
In June of 2024, Boston’s 106-88 win in game five of the NBA Finals over Dallas capped off a season in which the Celtics went 80-21 (regular season and postseason combined) en route to their 18th championship in franchise history. It’s a season on par with some of the greatest single-season teams in franchise history, completely dominating all season long after adding All-Stars Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday to a team that had already been knocking on the door of a championship for half a decade.
While their profiles are similar, Cora recognizes the specific challenges this Celtics team is dealing with that his group didn’t have to.
“In that sport, too, just facing the same guys over and over and over again,” said Cora. “And you faced it last year. It's a longer year for some of those guys, too, [with] the Olympics and Team USA. It's not easy, it's not easy.”
So does Cora think the Celts are cooked?
Not yet.
“But in the NBA, it can happen,” said Cora. “I’ve been - I don't want to be an analyst, but I sound like one. They've been up 20 twice. So have they played well? Yeah. They haven't finished games. So it's a league of adjustments, and I expect them to do that.”
Sox will attempt to win their three-game series with the Rangers with Brayan Bello (2-0, 2.55 ERA) on the mound. Jack Leiter (2-1, 4.58 ERA) gets the start for Texas.
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