BOSTON -- One day after the Red Sox did nothing at the trade deadline, manager Alex Cora said he plans to hold a team meeting in New York on Friday to address the final two months of the season.
"We'll see," Cora said. "I'll make it up tonight on the way to New York. But I think it's important, not because of what people think, it's just what's coming now. It's Aug. 1, Aug. 2, whenever we talk. This is the reality of where we're at. They know, but it's just a reminder, and we do that most of the time, but probably in a different setup."
Cora described such meeting as "not common at all," but felt now was a good time to bring the group together. On Wednesday, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski admitted that had the team been closer to first place, he might have approached the deadline differently.
Shortstop Xander Bogaerts, in turn, admitted his surprise that the team had stood pat.
"A little surprised, but not disappointed," Bogaerts said. "We hear a lot of chatter. We're human, and there's a lot of chatter about your guys, a little excitement – maybe this, it's a game that you don't know what's going to happen. And then in the end nothing happened, but we've got to trust the guys we have. We did it last year already. Everyone keeps talking about last year, but we did it with the same team we have, and I mean just right now everybody is kind of getting hot at the right moment, but these past couple days have been a little tough."
A smiling Cora said he couldn't remember holding a similar team meeting this season, but stressed the importance of the home stretch.
"I mean, we meet on a daily basis to go over pitchers and I use that sometimes to send a message or we need to do this better, or we're doing this great, just keep going," he said. "Not too often."
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