MLB Notebook: Red Sox get off the mat with Garrett Cooper trade, Sox bats explode against Cubs, Cora’s milestone & conflicting Casas updates

After taking blow after blow after blow after blow, Craig Breslow and the Boston Red Sox finally got off the mat and made a move.

Move over, Criswell. There’s a new Cooper in town…

Garrett Cooper is making the long journey from the visitor’s clubhouse at Fenway Park to the home clubhouse after being acquired by Boston in a trade with the Chicago Cubs, who happened to be in town for a three-game weekend series.

Cooper, a 33-year-old journeyman first baseman/outfielder, was acquired for cash considerations ahead of Saturday’s game to help fill the void created by Triston Casas’ rib injury.

“Obviously, he’s a guy that can put a good at-bat,” Alex Cora said. He can hit lefties and righties. He’s a good defender. So we’ll sit down and go over what we’re going to do, and we do believe he’s gonna help us out.” 

As I wrote on Wednesday, Cooper represented the best of the available options after the Cubs designated him for assignment on April 23. He’s a former All-Star (two years removed) who is coming off a career year in terms of power and production.

In 123 games with Miami and San Diego last season, Cooper posted career highs in homers (17) and RBIs (61) while slashing .251/.304/.419. Overall, he’s a .268 hitter across 493 games and eight big league seasons.

Even before his DFA this season, Cooper was off to a solid start at the plate slashing .270/.341/.432 with a home run and six RBIs. Cooper’s addition, even though it occurred in “break glass in case of emergency” fashion, has the potential to offer the team more than just another warm body.

His longterm potential doesn’t match that of Casas’, who is nine years his junior and hit six homers in his first 22 games while only driving in 10 runs and hitting .244. Yet Cooper provides a solid option for Cora to plug into the lineup. 

“Like I’ve been saying all along man, Trevor’s not gonna be here, Casas is gonna be out for a while — we’ve got to be ready for tomorrow,” Cora said. “I understand that he’s gonna be missed, but my mindset is whoever is playing is gonna contribute. That’s the way we see it, that’s the way we gonna do it, and we gonna be OK.”

Sox take it to Cubbies

Well, that was unexpected…

One day after being limited to one run on seven hits (and wasting another quality start by Kutter Crawford), the Red Sox exploded for a season-high 17 runs on 21 hits.

That’s *seventeen*… and *twenty one*.

At the center of the historic beatdown was none other than rookie center fielder-turned-shortstop Ceddanne Rafaela, who was a perfect 4 for 4 at the dish with a career-high seven RBIs — including a two-run homer in the seventh inning.

Interestingly enough, Cora didn’t seem overly enthused by Rafaela’s breakout day given the young utility player’s inconsistencies at the plate. In Friday’s 7-1 series-opening loss, Rafaela went 0 for 4. A day before in Cleveland, he was 0 for 4 with a pair of strikeouts. 

“We’ll know (if it carried over) tomorrow, right? That's the beauty of this game. We don't know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Cora said postgame. “He swung at pitches in the zone. He didn’t chase today, I don’t think, and it was a good one.”

Rafaela himself was measured in his response in his walk-off interview with NESN. 

”I think every day (it’s about) trusting the process, trusting the work I put in everyday in the cage,” Rafaela said. “And it’s good to see the hard work pay off.”

It’s encouraging to see Rafaela keeping a level head after what was unquestionably the greatest day of the 23-year-old’s professional baseball career. Perhaps that’s a result of feeding off his manager’s even-keeled tempo and expectations. Not too high, not too low…

All told, ten different players had at least one hit in the blowout — with six recording multi-hit games. Boston pushed six runs across the plate in two separate innings in its third-largest shutout victory in franchise history and biggest since 1954. 

Of note were the performances of designated hitter Masataka Yoshida, who went 4 for 5 to raise his season average to .269 and scored three runs, as well as Tyler O’Neill, who logged a 3 for 5 day with his team-leading ninth homer. Even Bobby Dalbec got in on the fun with a 2 for 4 day and three RBIs. 

“It was a good game all around,” Cora said. “ (Friday) wasn’t a great game and to be able to win today — and we got a shot to win the series tomorrow, that’s fun.” 

Cora moves into top five

In just his sixth season, Alex Cora has etched his name into the Sox history books yet again.

The skipper at the helm of the greatest season in franchise history on Saturday matched Jimmy Collins for the fifth-most managerial victories in Red Sox history with 455. 

Next up is Bill Carrigan with 489, then Mike Higgins (560), Terry Francona (744) and Joe Cronin (1,071). Cora will pass Carrigan (yes, even these Red Sox will win 35 more games…) this season, making him Boston baseball’s fourth-winningest manager.

Is Cora a top four, top five manager in Red Sox history? The numbers certainly suggest so, and that’s quite the accomplishment considering he’s one of 48 men to manage the team in their 124 seasons.

With one of the club’s nine World Series rings, three winning seasons and a .680 career postseason managerial win percentage (his 11 playoff wins are third-most in team history), Cora has the resume and pedigree of one of the best managers in the game.

And the best managers in the game tend to stick around and get paid.

Cora certainly will — be it may not be in Boston. Despite all his success, he’s still on the way to a potential third straight losing season and there are plenty of signs pointing to a potential divorce with Breslow and the Sox after this year. 

Cora is a very good manager, but he’s a win-now manager. Boston used to offer one of the better win-now opportunities in the game, yet that’s no longer the case. His services should be in high demand after the season, and my premonition is that Breslow won’t be willing to overextend himself to retain Cora’s services…

Good news on Casas?

As dire as the Sox have made Casas’ rib injury sound, the 24-year-old first baseman isn’t exactly sounding the alarm and declaring a DEFCON one situation…

Casas isn’t certain when he’ll be back, but he sounds pretty confident it will be sometime in 2024. 

“Very optimistic,” Casas told reporters Friday.

The good news is Casas didn’t actually break any of his ribs, instead he tore the cartilage in between his ribcage and sternum.

“The way that the doctors kind of explained it to me is that one isn't better than the other,” Casas said. “(If it) was a muscle or a bone or cartilage, they’re all similarly timetabled schedules.”

That timetable is apparently “anywhere from three weeks to six weeks to nine weeks,” although Casas also added that “they don’t know.” Three weeks wouldn’t exactly qualify as “a while” as Cora has been telling us, although six to nine weeks certainly would.

For all my talk of worrying about Rafael Devers’ violent swing, it turns out that a teammate three years younger than him is breaking down because of his swing motion first.

“(The doctor) pretty much chalked it up to me being so big, rotating so fast so many times that I pretty much created a car crash within my body,” said Casas. “It was a matter of time before this happened. He said it was something similar to a pitcher needing Tommy John, just an inevitable thing that was going to happen sooner or later.”

It’s concerning, no doubt — and perhaps part of the reason that Breslow and company have seemingly been so hesitant to extend Casas. And now it seems like the player and the organization might not be on the same page once again…