Sean McAdam: Red Sox changed managers exactly a month ago, but little is different

BOSTON — Monday marked the one-month anniversary of the Red Sox firing Alex Cora and most of his coaching staff, a move made with the intention of turning around the season while there was still time.

To the degree that the team’s record since interim manager Chad Tracy took over is 12-13, a modest improvement over the 10-17 mark compiled under Cora, it’s hard to unfurl the Mission Accomplished flag. The Red Sox have been only slightly better since the purge took place.

Not much has changed, and that’s hardly an indictment of Tracy. It’s merely reality.

In actuality, no one — including chief baseball officer Craig Breslow — could have reasonably expected a full-on revival on such short-notice. The Red Sox were a flawed bunch under Cora, and remain so under his successor. As Cora himself was fond of saying, with more than a touch of passive aggressiveness: “The roster is the roster.”

More specifically, the Red Sox didn’t hit under hitting coach Pete Fatse, and those issues remain now that Fatse and his lieutenants have been replaced. In point of fact, the Red Sox are currently averaging slightly fewer runs per game in the last month than they were in the first one, a stat somewhat influenced by a one-sided win (17-1) on the final day of Cora’s tenure.

In truth, the Red Sox don’t look terribly different under Tracy than they did under Cora. As he vowed on the day he took over, Tracy has urged a more aggressive approach to baserunning, with mixed results. At times, that’s paid dividends, but at others, it’s proved reckless.

On the whole, the Red Sox mostly pitch pretty well, mostly field pretty well and mostly appear inept at the plate. Tracy has tinkered with the lineup — inserting Jarren Duran in the leadoff spot even before Roman Anthony was injured, for one — and more recently, has found additional playing time for the likes of Nick Sogard and Mickey Gasper. Tracy has made his daily lineup construction an exercise in merit. He gave Caleb Durbin and Masataka Yoshida opportunities to hit and remain regulars; when they didn’t, he turned to others on the bench.

None of it, however, has resulted in any dramatic improvement in the club’s play. Nor is it fair to have expected such an about-face.

In his role as the public-facing leader of the team, Tracy has handled his twice-daily media interactions smoothly, avoiding the verbal missteps that might have befallen any rookie skipper. He’s been largely protective of his players, as has become customary for modern-day managers.

In-game, his game managing has been solid, save for a couple of questionable incidents involving bullpen usage. At no point in the dugout has he appeared overwhelmed or underprepared.

The cold hard truth is this: unless or until multiple regulars in the lineup start producing to their capabilities, it won’t much matter who the manager is. With the bottom-half of their lineup regularly featuring 4A talent and/or depth players, the Red Sox are not about to get the same bounce from their managerial change as the Philadelphia Phillies did.

The Phillies, as everyone could see, were classic underachievers, fresh off a season in which they won 96 games. For whatever reason, they had stopped playing well for Rob Thomson, but rediscovered their mojo under his replacement, Don Mattingly. And that’s why the Phils, who were 10 games under .500 for Thomson, are now 10 games over .500 with Mattingly at the helm.

It’s true that the Red Sox remain nominally in the playoff race, thanks to the thoroughly mediocre American League field. As bad as they’ve been, the Sox entered Tuesday play a mere three games out of the final Wild Card spot.

But that too is illusory because there are no fewer than five teams in front of them. Not only do the Red Sox have to make up the three-game deficit, but they have to overtake a handful of teams in the process.

For those who had hoped for a Morgan Magic-like storyline to play out, that was never a good comparison. Cora wasn’t as crusty and intractable as John McNamara and this roster wasn’t as talented as the one Morgan inherited in 1988.

Reminded of his one-month anniversary, Tracy said: “It feels longer, honestly...sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. It’s neither, I guess. Just day-to-day.”

In other words: same old, same old.

Just don’t blame the manager. That’s already been tried.

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