Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who rode a roster with Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers and Chris Sale to the most successful season in franchise history and then struggled to win with the discount lineups that replaced them, was fired on Saturday with Boston again mired in last place in the American League (AL) East.
Cora, who was an infielder on the Red Sox 2007 World Series championship team and managed them to a franchise-record 108 wins and another title in 2018, would be replaced on an interim basis by Chad Tracy.
A career minor leaguer whose father, Jim Tracy, served as a big league manager for 11 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Colorado Rockies, Chad Tracy had been managing Boston’s Triple-A affiliate the Worcester Red Sox, where Taiwanese infielder Cheng Tsung-che plays.
Photo: AP
Owner John Henry praised Cora in a statement, saying “he will always have our deepest gratitude.”
The Red Sox (10-17) made the announcement after a 17-1 victory in Baltimore over the Orioles that snapped a four-game losing streak — including a three-game sweep at Fenway Park by the archrival New York Yankees.
The team said it is also parting ways with five members of the coaching staff: hitting coach Peter Fatse, third base coach Kyle Hudson, bench coach Ramon Vazquez, assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson and major league hitting strategy coach Joe Cronin.
Game planning and run prevention coach Jason Varitek, the widely respected former Red Sox captain who was the catcher for three of the franchise’s four World Series titles this century, has been reassigned to an unspecified role within the organization.
A light-hitting infielder who spent three-plus seasons in Boston as a player, Cora was an Astros bench coach when the Houston Astros won it all in 2017. The Red Sox hired him to replace John Farrell, giving Cora his first major league managing job.
In his first season, the Red Sox set a franchise record for wins and beat the hated Yankees and then the Astros in the AL playoffs. Boston then defeated the Dodgers in five games to claim a fourth World Series title in 15 years.
The Red Sox finished third in the AL East the next season, missing the playoffs for the first time in five years. Then, during the offseason, The Athletic reported Cora had been a ringleader of an illegal sign-stealing scheme with the Astros during their championship season.
MLB investigated and suspended Cora for one season, and the Red Sox and Cora agreed he should step down. Ron Roenicke replaced him — an arrangement that from the beginning, despite all parties’ protestations, seemed to smooth the way for Cora’s eventual return.
Roenicke never had a chance, taking over a team that would soon go on a salary dump that purged Betts, the 2018 AL Most Valuable Player, along with 2012 AL Cy Young Award winner David Price. After a last-place finish in the COVID-19-pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Roenicke was let go and Cora returned.
In all, Cora was 620-541 as Red Sox manager. He was the first big league manager let go this season.
According to Sportradar, Cora is the first manager to get fired after winning a game by 16 or more runs since the New York Metropolitans fired Bob Ferguson following an 18-2 win over the Cleveland Spiders in the second game of a doubleheader on May 30, 1887.
The Metropolitans folded after that season.
Tracy, 40, had a 323-295 record at Worcester while managing the club to winning seasons in each of his first four years — the first Red Sox Triple-A manager to accomplish that feat since at least the 1930s. The WooSox are tied for first place in the International League East with a 14-11 record.
Earlier this month, Cheng made WooSox history by hitting a full cycle, with a walk, a single, a double, a triple and a home run in one game.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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