After winning five of their previous six outings, Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora commended the fans for sticking with them through the ugly years that led them to this season. Towards the end of the 2025 season, with the playoffs in sight, the Red Sox are atop the AL East wild card standings despite left fielder Jarren Duran’s hitting slump.
Cora took a moment to thank Red Sox fans for their continuous support throughout their turnaround season, per Red Sox reporter Ian Browne.
“You know, the cool thing about it, I’ll be very honest about it, like we sucked for three years, but Fenway never sucked. It was a packed house every single day, and we appreciate that from our fans.”
For the first time since 2021, Boston will be in a pennant race in September. Cora genuinely thanked the fans for sticking with the Red Sox through their trying years. Boston trails the Toronto Blue Jays by 4.0 games in the AL East standings.
After back-to-back wins to start a four-game series against the Baltimore Orioles, the Red Sox improved to 73-60 on the season. They followed up a 4-3 win with a 5-0 shutout victory on Tuesday.
Alex Cora gets real on Red Sox hitter Jarren Duran’s slump
Before Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story hit his 200th career home run in a win against the Orioles, Red Sox manager Alex Cora addressed left fielder Jarren Duran’s hitting slump. While encouraging Duran, Cora made it clear that the hitter isn’t chasing pitches amidst his slump, which is a good sign for the Red Sox manager.
Amid the Red Sox’s pennant race with the Blue Jays, Cora expects Duran to turn things around soon, he said, per MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith.
“[He’s chasing pitches down in the zone. He did miss some good pitches yesterday (against the Yankees) when we put pressure on them,” Cora said. “I was just looking in our system, and he’s hitting the ball hard. The expected numbers are good. He’s not chasing as much. Just one of those that — he’ll be OK. Just gotta be patient and he needs to be patient, too.”
Duran was coming off a hot July, where he put up an incredible 1.094 OPS, but he has been very mediocre in the other months of the season, never recording an OPS above .759 (April) in a whole calendar month’s worth of games — his next chance to hit out of the slump will be against the Orioles on Wednesday.
