Alex Cora Deserves Scrutiny After Red Sox's Bullpen Catastrophe Vs. Tigers

The Boston Red Sox are stuck in neutral... again.

For the fourth straight year, the Red Sox can't seem to separate themselves from the .500 plateau. After their devastating 10-9 loss to the Detroit Tigers in 11 innings, they're now 22-22, exactly .500 for the 10th time this season.

The Boston bullpen has been coughing up games like it's going out of style lately. And while it's tough for any manager to navigate late-game situations when their relievers are struggling as much as the Red Sox's are, Alex Cora deserves a lot of the blame for how things ended up on Tuesday night.

Cora went to Justin Wilson for just one out to get out of a traffic jam in the fifth inning, then watched as Garrett Whitlock, who has been struggling as much as anyone of late, gave up the first of two three-run bombs to a resurgent Javier Báez. That left only five arms left in the bullpen to get through the end of the night.

From there, Brennan Bernardino and Justin Slaten got through a clean seventh and eighth inning. Aroldis Chapman seemed like the perfect choice for the ninth, but why couldn't he go back out for the 10th with a one-run lead, having thrown only 12 pitches?

The nadir of the evening, however, was sending Greg Weissert out for the bottom of the 11th for a second inning of work. Weissert, who memorably couldn't finish off a two-run lead in extra innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers last season, only needed three pitches to blow this two-run lead, giving up Báez's second blast to end the night.

Cora said after the game that Weissert was "the only guy available," meaning that Liam Hendriks, who has thrown eight straight scoreless innings, wasn't ready to bounce back and pitch after three days' rest. So knowing that someone would likely need to throw two innings, why did Cora settle on Weissert?

Weissert has a career .793 OPS allowed in high-leverage situations, and an .819 OPS allowed in extra innings. If you get into the late innings of a tight game and he's the last guy available, you can't use everyone in front of him for one inning or less.

Someone other than Weissert had to be prepared for multi-inning duty, and Cora needed to recognize it sooner. Because the Red Sox need to escape this cycle of mediocrity, and continually losing tight games is the worst way to go about it.

Boston is 4-11 in one-run games now. The manager doesn't bear all the blame for that, but he's got to find a way to help stop the bleeding.