BOSTON -- Fresh from an off-day shopping spree at the neighborhood Target to stock his new house, rookie manager Alex Cora showed up for work Thursday and offered a candid assessment of the first-place Boston Red Sox after the season’s first week.
“The good thing,” Cora said, “is we haven’t played our best baseball.”
Over the next few hours, in the 107th annual opening of Fenway Park, the Red Sox lived up to that evaluation. They barely hit for eight innings against a Tampa Bay Rays pitcher who was making his first career start before their bats finally awakened in the ninth.