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Alex Cora not harping on late-game ejection by C.B. Bucknor: ‘We’re all human’
Cora was ejected in the eighth for arguing an inning-ending Trevor Story check swing strike three call.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora made it just 17 innings into the 2026 season without being ejected.
Saturday’s 6-5 loss to the Cincinnati Reds featured a raucous moment late in the game when Boston shortstop Trevor Story argued a strike three call on his check swing. The Red Sox had runners on first and second base while trailing by one run with two outs in the eighth inning when home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor called Story out.
Bucknor opted not to defer to the first base umpire, who likely would have ruled that Story didn’t actually swing.
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Story became furious toward Bucknor, prompting Cora to run out and separate the two to keep Story from being ejected. Cora was ultimately thrown out for giving his opinion on the situation.
Story chose not to say much about his and Bucknor’s conversation after the game, but Cora explained his feelings about the veteran umpire’s call. He said he was “100 percent” upset that Bucknor didn’t appeal to the first base umpire.
“He has one job to do: is call balls and strikes,” Cora said. “It wasn’t his best day. That’s what the (automatic balls and strikes challenge) system does, it is out there. Everybody sees it.”
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However, Cora didn’t have any harsh words for Bucknor. The skipper had several innings to cool off in the clubhouse as the game went to extras.
“He’ll be the first one to accept it. I saw him putting his head down after one of the challenges. We’re all human. It’s not easy, what we do and what he does,” Cora said. “I got a job to do in the dugout and at that moment, it was to protect Trevor.”
Cora also said that Bucknor didn’t explain why he made the call on the check swing himself.
While Bucknor’s call wasn’t subject to ABS, plenty of his balls and strikes calls were. Reds hitters challenged five of the umpire’s strike calls; all five of them were overturned to balls.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, lost each of their two challenges by the third inning. Left fielder Roman Anthony, who had plenty of experience with ABS in the minor leagues last year, hasn’t been afraid to challenge strike calls dating back to spring training.
His eye has been pretty good thus far, except when he lost Boston’s final challenge a third of the way into the game. Anthony challenged a strike call that was ultimately confirmed to be a strike by 0.1 inches.
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Bucknor proceeded to miss several calls that disadvantaged the Red Sox the remainder of the way. At times, Boston batters began to bring their hand to their head (the official signal for challenging a pitch), but brought it back down when they remembered the team was out of challenges.
Anthony blamed himself for leaving his teammates without the ability to argue calls in what was a close game until the end.
“Not a good time to challenge,” he said. “Just got too aggressive with it. Can’t happen.
“Rather it happen now than down the road. Kind of just take that and learn from that and learn from what followed that and hold on to those.”
Cora echoed Anthony’s sentiment about using the situation as a learning opportunity. The team experienced success with the challenge system on Opening Day, but Saturday was a much different story.
“We learned a lot today,” Cora said. “[The umpires are] professionals and they’re gonna call what they see as a strike as a strike, and what they see as a ball as a ball. From my end, there were some calls we didn’t agree. But, we had no challenges, so we had to live with it until the 10th that we got one back.”
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Cora said the coaching staff will continue to discuss ABS strategy with players, given that there are 160 regular season games left.
“We’ll talk to the players, and that’s it,” he said. “One was by, what, half an inch? Still, we just gotta know the situation. We’ll still talk about it. We’ve been talking about it the whole spring.”
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