In a not so surprising move, the Red Sox have named Alex Cora as their 47th manager in team history. For the past week, it was speculated that he was the top choice for the open manager spot. The only other notable competition he had was Arizona Diamondbacks’ assistant coach Ron Gardenhire. That all changed on Saturday, when Gardenhire was swept up by the Detroit Tigers. From there, it was clear that Cora was the man for the job. The team has not made it official yet — they must wait for Cora‘s current team to finish their season. Currently, he is the Houston Astros’ bench coach and the organization is about to embark in their second ever World Series appearance.
This is not Cora’s first stint in Boston, he played for the Red Sox from 2005-2008 mainly as a utility infielder. Although he was never a star player, he was always highly respected by fellow players and had a reputation amongst fans as being a very like-able person.
Right now, he feels like the right type of manager that the Red Sox need. They need someone that is personable — and like-able among the fans and players. They also need a person the younger players can go to and the fact that he speaks Spanish should help out some of the Hispanic players on the Sox. The biggest question mark is going to be whether he can in game manage and handle the scrutiny of the Red Sox brass. There are high expectations in Boston and we’ll see if Cora is able to handle that.
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