Cora on playoff push: 'We just want to dance'
BOSTON -- The way they were on a roll for just about all of 2018, the Red Sox had a pretty good feeling early on that they’d not only be the American League East champions, but also have home-field advantage throughout the postseason.
The path has been different this season, but things are at last coming around and confidence is growing.
As for whether the Sox come all the way back to win the division -- they trailed the Yankees by nine games after Sunday night’s 9-6 loss to New York -- or go in as one of the AL Wild Card teams, manager Alex Cora will confidently take his chances with his club.
“We just want to dance, man,” Cora said. “We just want to get there. Obviously, you want to avoid that [Wild Card] Game, that's the most important thing, that's the goal of every team in the playoff hunt, you don't want to play that game. But if that's the way, and we find a way to October and win that game and go on the road, we really don't care.”
Of late, Cora has been seeing the team that prompted him in January at the Boston Baseball Writers’ Dinner to proclaim, “If you guys thought last year was special, wait till this year.”
Given the tough start his team had to the season, Cora was asked Sunday if he ever regretted making that statement in such a public forum.
“No, no, not really,” Cora said. “I felt like it was going to be fun. It’s not over yet, so there’s different routes to have fun.”
If the Red Sox do have to play more on the road in this year’s postseason, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In the 2018 postseason, Boston was 4-2 at Fenway and 7-1 on the road.
“Like everybody's been telling me this year, it's a different season, so we'll see,” Cora said. “We're confident. We know we can play anywhere. It just so happens that last year we went to some tough places and we won. We went to New York and we won two. We went to Houston and we won three. And we finished it in L.A.. I think all the teams that are in the hunt right now, they're capable of doing that.”
Best of Barnes
Remember the mighty struggles that key setup man Matt Barnes had in June, when he posted a 9.69 ERA in 15 games? Barnes has turned that slump into a distant memory, getting back to a level of dominance in July.
In his first nine games this month entering Sunday, Barnes hadn’t been scored on while striking out 14 over seven innings.
With Nathan Eovaldi now a part of the bullpen, Barnes no longer has to be overworked like he was in June.
“He’s in a spot that very quietly and without people noticing, he’s pitching in high-leverage situations with two outs and getting the big out of the game,” Cora said. “He did last year. I know he can do it. I think usage lately has been a lot better than last month. Last month, it was just the nature of the month. We needed him to pitch that many games.”
Johnson likely to get start in NY
The latest plan for lefty Brian Johnson is that he will make another rehab appearance for Triple-A Pawtucket on Tuesday. Assuming that goes well, he is expected to start one of the games in Saturday’s day-night doubleheader at Yankee Stadium next weekend.
Johnson hasn’t pitched for the Red Sox since June 22 due to a medical matter not related to baseball.
Supervising Club Reporter Ian Browne has covered the Red Sox for MLB.com since 2002.