Alex Cora explained his thought process before Eduardo Nunez’s pinch-hit home run
"I told him, 'Be ready, man. You might have a big at-bat tonight and do your thing.'"
Red Sox manager Alex Cora offered a view into his tactical mindset after his team’s 8-4 Game 1 win in the World Series.
“I love it,” Cora said about in-game management against an opponent. “It’s a challenge. They’re going to mix and match. They’re going to pinch-hit, they’re going to bring their relievers. And you have to – and you know how I say I hate managing the other team, but actually you have to manage them, and see who they have, and where they’re going to come in, and when is going to be the point that the matchup is going to benefit us.”
For Cora and the Red Sox, such a point arrived in the bottom of the 7th inning, with two on and two out.
Third baseman Rafael Devers was set to hit, and the Dodgers decided to make a pitching change. In came Los Angeles reliever Alex Wood for Pedro Baez on the mound. Seeing an opportunity, Cora sent out Eduardo Nunez as a pinch hitter for Devers. And the 31-year-old veteran responded with the game-breaking three-run home run:
NOON TIME.#WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/IFWyZwsix1
— MLB (@MLB) October 24, 2018
Cora elaborated on how he saw his options before the home run.
“In that inning, I think we had a few match-ups that we felt comfortable with,” Cora said after the game. “[Andrew Benintendi] gets on, we’ve got Mitch [Moreland] against Baez, and then we had [Nunez] against Wood.”
After not getting to start against a left-handed pitcher, Cora noted that Nunez stayed focused.
“Something that we talked about it today, when he came in probably he was a little bit disappointed that he didn’t start, because he’s been starting against every lefty. But we felt [Rafael] was going to hang in there with [Clayton] Kershaw. And having him on the bench, it was going to pay off. You’ve got to keep a righty. [Steve] Pearce is playing. Ian [Kinsler] was playing. So keeping him in the dugout and out of the lineup was going to probably give us a chance to win the game.”
“And it worked out,” Cora concluded. “He was prepared. He wasn’t upset, actually, that he wasn’t playing. I told him, ‘Be ready, man. You might have a big at-bat tonight and do your thing.’ And he did.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts defended bringing Wood into the game:
#Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on decision to pull Pedro Baez in favor of Alex Wood, who gave up three-run HR to Nunez::
“Devers is really good against the right-hander and to get a guy off the bench and Nunez. I still liked Alex in that spot.” @WorldSeries
— Kyle Hightower (@khightower) October 24, 2018
For Nunez, he joined some notable postseason company:
https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/1054938882867978240
