Sports

Red Sox in awe of Yankees’ secret weapon you rarely see

LONDON — Here in James Bond’s native country, Alex Cora commended the Yankees for doing bloody good spy work.

Legal spy work, to be clear. But effective nonetheless as Cora’s Red Sox took an absolute lashing overseas.

“It wasn’t a good weekend on the field,” the Boston manager said, after the Yankees pounded the Bosox on Sunday at London Stadium, 12-8, to complete a sweep of the inaugural London Series and put them in an 11-game American League East hole. “That’s a good offensive team. We know that. They’re better than last year. Their attention to detail is phenomenal.

“I was joking with somebody that their biggest free-agent acquisition is [special adviser] Carlos Beltran. I know how he works. He’s helped them a lot. They’re very into details, and we have to clean our details. It was eye-opening, the last two days, from top to bottom.





“I’m not saying devices, all that stuff. It’s just stuff that the game will dictate. And we’ll scream at people, and it’s right there. Throughout the evening, I was looking, and I saw it. And right now they’re doing a lot better than us. So we need to get better.”

Asked specifically whether his pitchers, who got battered for 29 runs and 32 hits over these two games, were tipping what was coming, Cora said, “This weekend, we did everything. We tipped pitches. Sequence, everything. That’s why I’m saying. I know Carlos. … That was a great addition to their staff over there.”

Beltran and Cora, both from Puerto Rico, are good friends and were teammates with the 2009-10 Mets, as well as the champion 2017 Astros, with Beltran a player and Cora the bench coach. The truth is that the baseball savant Beltran visits the Yankees only sporadically, so Cora — who made sure to also offer verbal bouquets to Yankees manager Aaron Boone and his coaches — was being a tad playful with his Beltran praise.





“I think that is paranoia talking,” Yankees stud DJ LeMahieu said of Cora’s above-the-belt allegations.

Yet the greater point stands: The defending champion Red Sox are getting housed every which way by the Yankees at the moment.

“I think we put up two of the best games we had offensive-wise this whole year. Especially back-to-back,” Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts said of his guys, who totaled 21 runs and 33 hits in the two contests: “And to not win, that’s really rough. I think if you ask anyone, if you put up double digits in back-to-back games, you should probably win at least one. And it wasn’t the case.”

The Sawx leapt out to a 4-0 lead off Yankees opener Stephen Tarpley in the first inning, hammering three homers, and it proved to be not nearly enough.





“We got a 4-0 lead, we had a chance to add on, and we didn’t,” Cora said. “Last year, we were putting teams away. This year, we’re not doing that. And we gave them a chance to hang in the game, hang in the game. We didn’t make pitches in the seventh and eighth inning and we paid the price.”

Ten of the Yankees’ 12 runs came in the seventh and eighth, with nine in the former inning.

“Coming across the pond, you’ve got to be able to get some wins,” said reliever Marcus Walden, who took the loss as he allowed four runs without retiring a batter. “Today, I’m willing to take that on my shoulders.”





“We have the talent to win the World Series,” Cora said, “but we have to play better. I’ve been saying it since Day 1. It had better happen sooner than later, because not that we’re running out of time, but the lead is huge. It’s a huge lead. And there’s other teams around us that are playing good baseball. They’re trending up, and we’re not doing that.”

Will the Red Sox’s title defense be lost in London? The Yankees surely wouldn’t mind that one bit. Like any quality nemesis, however, you count out these guys at your own risk.

“We’re going to clean it up,” Cora said. “And hopefully, when we play them again, it’s closer.”

Geographically or in the standings, it can’t get much farther than right now, can it?





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