Once Alex Cora dried off from the champagne, and before he turned his attention to the Astros, it might have been in his best interest to go buy a Powerball ticket.
It was all coming up Cora on Tuesday night.
The Red Sox manager benched a player who had just hit for the cycle, started a backstop who hadn’t caught Rick Porcello all season, took his dominant starting pitcher out after five innings to leave the game up to his shaky bullpen, and by the end of it all, was on his way to the ALCS.
On a night his Yankees counterpart was second-guessed again, Cora continued to have the golden touch as the Red Sox finished off the Yankees 4-3 in Game 4 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium.
Brock Holt’s historic cycle in Game 3 didn’t come with a ticket back into the lineup, with Cora instead opting to start Ian Kinsler at second base. Cora preferred the matchup of the right-handed Kinsler, rather than the left-handed Holt, to face Yankees lefty CC Sabathia.
“I told [Holt] it’s a tough league,” Cora said with a grin before Game 4. “I talked to him this morning, and he knew. He knew where we were going.”
Kinsler rewarded the decision by roping an RBI double over a leaping Brett Gardner with two outs in the third inning to put the Red Sox up 2-0. He came around to score on an RBI single by Eduardo Nunez, who was also back in the lineup after sitting out the Red Sox’s 16-run barrage in Game 3.
Christian Vazquez, meanwhile, had never caught Porcello during the regular season. Sandy Leon had caught 32 of the righty’s 33 regular-season starts, with Blake Swihart taking care of the other.
But there was Vazquez — he of the .207 batting average and three home runs during the regular season — poking a solo homer into the first row of seats in right field off Zach Britton in the fourth inning to give the Red Sox a 4-0 lead.
Cora even aced his pitching moves. Porcello had cruised through five innings, giving up just one run on four hits and no walks, but with Aaron Judge set to take his third at-bat of the night leading off the sixth, Cora called on the bullpen to nail down the final 12 outs.
Matt Barnes retired the heart of the Yankees’ order in the sixth. Ryan Brasier breezed through the seventh. Ace Chris Sale — Game 5’s scheduled starter pitching to make sure there would be no Game 5 — locked down the eighth. And Craig Kimbrel, seemingly the surest bet in the bullpen, somehow survived an eventful ninth.
Just the way Cora drew it up.
