Red Sox News: Alex Cora defends Franchy Cordero’s outfield positioning

Red Sox left fielder Franchy Cordero was too shallow to make the play

Nick Pivetta was deprived of his chance for glory at a pivotal turning point that had many questioning the defensive alignment of the Boston Red Sox outfield.

Pivetta was dominating the Seattle Mariners lineup through five innings without allowing a hit. The lone base runner who reached on a walk was immediately wiped out on a double play in the fourth. The right-hander retired the first two batters in the sixth before the first signs of trouble emerged with consecutive walks that put the tying runs on base.

He was one strike away from escaping the jam with the no-hitter intact but Ty France lined a slider on a 2-2 count over the head of left fielder Franchy Cordero for a two-run double.

The no-hit bid and the lead evaporated in one play. Boston would end up losing in extra-innings but a 10th inning would never had been necessary if the Red Sox had held the lead in the sixth.

Cordero was playing shallow in left field, even by Fenway Park standards. He didn’t get a great jump on his route and perhaps with a better read on the fly ball the leaping Cordero’s outstretched glove would have made the play. It would have been routine for an outfielder positioned at normal depth though.

While many were quick to pin the blame on Cordero, manager Alex Cora defended his outfielder while addressing the media after the game, according to MassLive’s Chris Cotillo.

“We had him right there,” Cora said. “That’s the recommendation. We make adjustments but, usually — we’ve been really good about positioning. I’m not going to second-guess that one.”

The Red Sox have piles of data that they sort through to analyze every scenario imaginable. The analytics showed that the left fielder should play shallow against France. A quick glance at his spray chart against right-handed pitchers over the last two seasons shows the vast majority of the balls France pulls to left field are bunched in the territory where Cordero was positioned.

You can’t predict everything in baseball. All you can do is use the data at your disposal to evaluate what’s most likely to happen and the evidence suggested that Cordero playing shallow gave him the best odds of preventing a hit.

That logic doesn’t seem to apply to this scenario though. If the tying run was on third with two outs, you make every effort to prevent a base hit. Cordero would have been in the perfect spot in that case but that wasn’t the scenario the Red Sox were facing here. This was a situation with runners on first and second with two outs in a two-run game. A single that drops in front of Cordero only allows one runner to score, giving Pivetta a chance to escape the jam with the lead intact.

While keeping Pivetta’s no-hitter intact was an admirable goal, the priority was preventing both runners from scoring to maintain the lead. The one thing an outfielder can’t do in that situation is let the ball get over his head. By playing shallow, that’s exactly what happened to Cordero.

It boils down to the debate between old school baseball sense and analytics. Cora trusted what the data told him and more often than not, it works out.

It’s similar to when a ground ball sneaks through when the infielders are in the shift. That should be a routine out if they are aligned in their normal positions but the analytics say the defense should shift when that hitter is at the plate. If he beats the shift, you tip your cap to him. It doesn’t mean you abandon using the shift because it cost you in that scenario. The data still shows it gives you the best opportunity to make an out.

Analytics can be a useful tool that managers can’t ignore but they don’t need to be strict guidelines. The Red Sox were aligned properly to give themselves the best chance to record an out but it also exposed them to a worst-case scenario on a ball put in play to left and that decision came back to bite them.