In the fifth inning of a 5-4 game, Jarren Duran found himself in no-man's land. The outfielder took a massive lead off second base as Abraham Toro tapped a slow grounder to the shortstop just behind him.
Duran couldn't turn back to second base without risking being tagged, so he took off for third base. The Angels infielders closed in on him and tagged him out on the base paths. Toro saw his moment to advance to second base, and took it. The ball beat him by a mile, and he was called out. Alex Cora objected.
The Boston Red Sox manager climbed out of the dugout and onto the field to argue his case. The umpiring crew congregated and debated Cora's points, but the ruling on the field stood. Cora voiced his displeasure with the call before being thrown out of the game. Then, he really let loose — he got in crew chief Alan Porter's face and got his money's worth of his second consecutive ejection.
As Cora screamed and argued, NESN's broadcast crew struggled to figure out why. After the game, he explained.
Alex Cora explains bizarre, heated ejection from Red Sox-Angels game
Alex Cora on the play he was ejected on 🎙️
— NESN (@NESN) June 24, 2025
"Our point of view was he was blocking the bag." pic.twitter.com/C66EcX44IY
"Our point of view is that he was blocking the bag at second," Cora said. "We had a similar situation last year with the same crew, and it was (Byron) Buxton at second base, Vaughn (Grissom) blocked the bag, he was called safe, Rocco (Baldelli) argued and Alan reversed the call, so that was my whole point."
Luis Rengifo, who covered second base after Duran's rundown, clearly had his knee down in front of the bag before he had possession of the ball. The runner is entitled to the entire side of the bag that faces them as they attempt to tag, so, regardless of whether Toro would've been out or not, he still should have been awarded the base.
The Red Sox never should've been in that situation, though. Had Duran kept his head up while running the bases, he could've advanced to third base and Boston would've had runners on the corners and no outs in the fifth inning of a one-run game. Instead, the Red Sox lost their manager and a rally in one fell swoop — not for a lack of trying on Cora's part.
Boston ended up losing, 9-5, because of sloppy all-around play. The pitching staff issued a staggering 11 walks, the defense logged an error and Duran and Toro's base running blunder cost the Red Sox dearly. Their record is back down to .500 after a few surprising wins without Alex Bregman or Rafael Devers in the lineup. They'll need to maintain at least that pace to justify buying at the trade deadline, but the Red Sox's constant mistakes don't give their fans much confidence.