Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora is winless on Opening Day, and he's taking an unconventional approach to changing that trend. The sixth-year skipper is 0-5 all-time on the first game of the season, and he'll look to break that spell Wednesday night against the Seattle Mariners.
With right-handed ace Luis Castillo taking the mound for the Mariners, one would think that Cora would try to pack the lineup with as many lefties as possible. However, that's not the case this time. Cora elected to start right-handed outfielder Tyler O'Neill over the southpaw Wilyer Abreu, and his reasoning was unusual to say the least, via Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe.
“I've got a five-game losing streak on Opening Day and he (O'Neill) has a four-game home run streak going into Opening Day. Analytics,” Cora said.
Alex Cora has the Red Sox assigning a new meaning to “analytics”
O'Neill does have a chance to make history, as his four consecutive Opening Day games with homers are tied for the most all-time. The other three players to achieve the feat were Yogi Berra, Todd Hundley, and Gary Carter, via Elias Sports Bureau.
Furthermore, O'Neill has actually homered off of Castillo before. The veteran was 7-of-32 (.219 batting average) with two home runs and four RBIs across 35 plate appearances against the star hurler coming into the contest, via StatMuse.
Meanwhile, Abreu hasn't yet faced Castillo, and he's coming off a rough spring training. The second-year outfielder hit just .127. Cora claimed that wasn't the reason, but it's worth considering that O'Neill is currently in better form, via Sean McAdam of MassLive.
“The strikeouts (were a concern), but not the at-bats,” Cora said about Abreu. “I think the at-bats were really good — deep in counts and all that, swing-and-miss in the zone. A mechanical adjustment the last five or six days is getting him there. I think he hit the ball hard in Texas. There was a game there where he hit three rockets. He’ll be ready.”
However, Cora's praise of O'Neill was noticeably more effusive.
“Honestly, the at-bats have been really good throughout,” Cora said. “We have to not only manage the first six innings, but we have to manage their two lefties (in the bullpen) and I think there’s an opportunity for him to face a lefty. Defensively, he’s really good. We’ll give him a chance to play against (Castillo). We know the numbers. We know that Castillo is really good against righties and he’s ‘struggled’ against lefties. But he’s good against anybody.”
While Cora's joke about the Opening Day streaks may have been humorous, it does appear that he had more concrete reasoning behind the lineup shakeup. Whether or not Tyler O'Neill is able to break the record, it'll be intriguing to see how Cora deploys the two outfielders throughout the season, as the Red Sox aim to rebound from a disastrous season.
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