Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Rick Porcello, right, hands the ball to manager Alex Cora, center, while being pulled from the baseball game against the New York Yankees during the fifth inning Saturday, June 1, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

After winning 108 regular season games in 2018 and another 11 as they cruised through the Playoffs and World Series to the World Championship, the Red Sox have inexplicably become just another team. On April 17, the defending Worlds Champions, were in fifth place, 8.5 games out of first, with a dismal 6-13 record.

In the next six weeks, they won 23 and lost 13 to raise their record to 29-26 and moved up to third place but they were still 7.5 games out of first and had won exactly half of their last 12 games, including two out of three, at home, to the Houston Astros, a team that they would have to get by to return to the World Series. 

Carl Johnson

How did this happen? How can a team that had done as well as the Sox did in 2018 and come back the next year with almost the same players become an also-ran overnight?

There are as many answers to that question out there as there are Red Sox Fans. My feeling, reaffirmed by watching the Indians thump them 14-9, and drop their record to 29-27 on last Wednesday, is that it was caused by one of the worst decisions in baseball history made by Alex Cora and affirmed by his bosses at the start of this season.

In 2018, the Sox and their new manager went into Spring Training dedicated to establishing a winning attitude by winning in Spring Training.  They won 22 and lost just nine Grapefruit League Games on the way to their historic season. In 2019, Cora declared that the Sox had had a long season in 2018 and not much time off and was going to prevent a letdown at the end of the season by not working as hard in Spring Training. As a result, the Sox won just 12 and lost 17 in Spring Training.

As the season has progressed, he has made sure that his frontline players get plenty of time off to keep them fresh for the postseason. That will be fine if they get to the postseason, and that’s a big “if” at this point.  They may turn it around and prove that it was a good decision but every day that goes by makes it less likely.

In the debacle against Cleveland on last Wednesday night, a pop fly fell between Mookie Betts and Brock Holt as they watched each other and did nothing to catch it. That was one of those things that happens in a game like that but, after the ball dropped, Holt had a big smile on his face, and it appeared that he was not concerned that they had just looked like little leaguers. 

That, and the lackluster performance of this team to date, indicates to me that the attitude that Cora has instilled in this team with his obsession with resting his players to prepare for the long run, is at the root of their ridiculous start.

In 1912, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series as the Red Sox after winning as the Boston Americans in 1903. They won 105 games in 1912 the second highest total in Red Sox history and one of just three times that the Sox have won more than 100 games in a year. They did that under first-year manager Jake Stahl. That 1912 team beat the New York Giants in the World Series four games to three (with one tie).

Believe it or not, the next year, the Boston Red Sox finished in fourth place in the American League winning just 77 and losing 73. That team, like the 2019 Red Sox, came back from the World Series win with mostly the same players and Stahl still at the helm.

I say believe it or not because that Red Sox team that had won 105 games and won the World Series, started the season with a 29-26 record after 55 games, the exact record this year’s Red Sox had after 55 games. 

Cora had better find a way to motivate this team after he instilled a losing attitude in Spring Training and would do well to note that, in 1913, after 80 games and a record of 39-42, despite winning a World Series the first year he managed the team, Stahl was replaced by Bill Carrigan as Red Sox manager and the Red Sox won three more World Series in the next five years.

So far, it appears that all Cora accomplished by resting his players is to instill a losing attitude. He and his well-rested team, in which he appears to have instilled this losing attitude, have been the biggest disappointment in baseball so far.

Carl Johnson is a noted baseball lecturer and author. His books include the popular series “THE BASEBALL BUFF’S BATHROOM BOOKS” and “THE BEST TEAM EVER?” which chronicles the Red Sox 2018 World Series win.