Yankees fans have prepared for this day ever since the Red Sox made the most hilariously obvious lame-duck hiring in MLB history by appointing nice guy Ron Roenicke to the throne of a trainwreck team as penance for nothing.
Sure, they fired Alex Cora “due to” his scandalous tenure in Houston, which bled over into a record-setting season in Boston in 2018; fans will assure you that campaign unlike any other was entirely clean. But even when Cora was dismissed, it felt like it was out of obligation rather than an example of Boston’s belief system, and we all assumed he’d find his way back — and be clapped on the back by the baseball media, inexplicably — next year.