The Boston Red Sox are right in the middle of a division race, and on Monday, they faced the last-placed team in the AL West, the Oakland Athletics. While they did take a drama-free 7-0 win at home in the end, the Red Sox did raise a ton of eyebrows before the game when they listed Jarren Duran as the starting right fielder — taking him away from his more natural position of left field just so they could fit in Nick Sogard into the lineup.
Nonetheless, all is well that ends well; Red Sox manager Alex Cora did come to his senses and put Duran back in left field, with Sogard being the one to adjust instead at right field. It even surprised Cora himself that he would think to move Duran, who's better in left field and has shown above-average to excellent defense at the position before, out of his comfort zone.
“I made up my mind, like ‘What the hell are you doing?' Why have two guys out of position? Jarren is one of the best defensive left fielders in the big leagues and Ceddanne is the best one in center field. I was looking in BP and said, ‘Nah, man. This doesn't make sense,'” Cora said after the game, per Chris Cotillo of Mass Live.
It wasn't quite clear why the Red Sox would accommodate for Sogard being in the lineup in this manner; Sogard is a right-handed hitter anyway, and the Athletics were starting a right-handed pitcher on the mound.
But what's important is that Cora realized the error of his ways. Cora may simply have been overthinking a lot of things, but the Red Sox manager clearly realized that keeping it simple is the best course of action most of the time.
Red Sox keep up the pressure in the AL East chase
At present, it looks like the Red Sox are safely within the playoff picture, barring an unlikely unforeseen late-season collapse. But they just keep on hanging around in the race for the division title; their 7-0 win over the Athletics has them just three games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the AL East lead, which, with 17 games left, is a deficit that they can make up quite reasonably.
The Red Sox have two more games in this current series against the Athletics before they head back home to host the New York Yankees in a three-game set that will be crucial in deciding the playoff picture.
