Boston Red Sox: Alex Cora holding team meeting for reeling Sox

The Boston Red Sox continue to build their deficit, getting swept by the Rays. manager Alex Cora will reportedly hold a team meeting prior to their four-game road series against the Yankees.

After the best offense in Major League Baseball puts on a run-scoring clinic of a display against New York Yankees pitching, the 2019 Boston Red Sox continue to give everyone more reasons to count them out in their showing the following series against Tampa Bay.

It’s Wednesday, July 31, and the streets of Fenway await the bare minimal sense of urgency to address the continuous, ongoing issue that’s made this miserable season feel like an eternity.

The Red Sox bullpen which at the deadline, stood with a 5.18 earned run average and 1.51 WHIP for the month of July. The bullpen that allowed opponents to score 48 earned runs in their 83.1 innings of “work” in relief.

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Rather than making an aggressive push towards acquiring a competent bullpen arm to help relieve and rectify the everlasting stain that’s continued to try their best to fully push the season off a cliff, President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski issued a statement that didn’t necessarily sit well with those hoping to land a new arm.

Following the 4:00 p.m. trade deadline, Dombrowski stated, “If we were closer to first place, I would have been open-minded to some things”, and further added, “the club here needs to play better on a consistent basis. That’s the way I look at it.”

Again, this isn’t the brightest statement issued by Dombrowski during his tenure in the Boston Red Sox front office. To completely neglect that fact that you yourself entered this season with a bottom of the food-chain bullpen, watching arms like Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel walk, without replacing them, is absurd.

There isn’t some catastrophic issue in simply allowing them to walk solely based on financial reasoning, nevertheless to not replace them and expect to be replaced by no-name minor leaguers and a Steven Wright who is still on this team for whatever reason, is again absolutely absurd.

Issuing that statement almost brings the notion to the table that Dombrowski is in a sense punishing those who are coming through to keep this team from completely imploding.

Watching the seasons from Christian Vazquez, Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, and even Eduardo Rodriguez, while not upgrading the very source that’s wasted those seasons. The overshadowing factor that keeps us from praising their efforts, and instead directing our attention to who from the bullpen is going to blow the game tonight?

A factor that mind you, almost kept Xander Boagerts off the American League All-Star team in an MVP-caliber season.

Yet, somehow, someway, the same Boston Red Sox team that has the number one offense in all of baseball, scoring more runs than anyone else in the big leagues, isn’t good enough. The best collective batting average in baseball isn’t consistent enough for Dombrowski.

Instead of holding the bullpen accountable, he defers to a broad nonsensical statement that throws everyone on the team under the bus, including those who have put guys like Heath Hembree, Josh Taylor, and Ryan Braiser, on their back all season long.

Granted, Boston’s starting crew of David Price, Rick Porcello, and Dombrowski’s pre-deadline acquisition Andrew Cashner, didn’t come through against Tampa Bay.

None of which managed to reach 6.0 innings on the mound. A frustrating display, reminiscent of their bullpen, that even forced Rick Porcello to smash a pair of dugout televisions as he made his way off the mound, and into the clubhouse.

Eduardo Rodriguez takes the ball in game one of the series against the American League East-leading Yankees in Bronx New York tonight. In his last 11 starts, Rodriguez has gone 8-1 with a 3.03 ERA. E-Rod also has a career 3.74 earned run average in Yankee Stadium.

With Boston currently 10.5 games behind New York, 3.5 back of Tampa Bay.

What a time to be a Boston Red Sox fan!