Cora Benches Casas Late — Confidence Fading in Red Sox’ ‘Power Prospect’

Alex Cora made the kind of move that says more than any postgame quote could. In the eighth inning of a tie game on Wednesday, the Red Sox manager pulled Triston Casas — a former first-round pick and supposed cornerstone of the franchise’s youth movement — in favor of utility man Romy Gonzalez.

Casas had struck out twice and looked lost doing it. Lefty Brendon Little was on the mound, but Casas has actually hit southpaws better than righties this year. That didn’t matter. Cora saw enough.

It was a quiet but telling decision, the kind you make when your belief in a player starts to flicker.

Casas is now slashing .181/.289/.300 with three home runs, 11 RBIs and a .589 OPS through 27 games. The Red Sox came into 2025 banking on the 24-year-old to bounce back after a frustrating, injury-wrecked 2024. What they’ve gotten instead is a confusing mess of bad at-bats, occasional “hard contact,” and growing doubt.

There have been flashes. He homered in back-to-back games to open the Seattle series last week. He collected two hits Tuesday in Toronto. But those bursts haven’t been enough to fully restore confidence — not in Cora, not in the front office, and increasingly, not in the fanbase.

Signs of Life or Just Noise? Red Sox Brass Walks the Line on Casas

The timing of Casas’ struggles couldn’t be worse. The Red Sox don’t have an obvious replacement at first base. That’s part of what makes the situation so thorny. Romy Gonzalez, who pinch-hit for Casas on Wednesday, isn’t a natural first baseman — more of a versatile depth piece than a long-term answer. So even as Cora starts to make late-game moves that reflect diminished trust, the question remains: who else can they turn to?

So what now?

On WEEI’s “Greg Hill Show,” host Jermaine Wiggins asked Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow if it’s time to consider a different direction at first. Breslow didn’t shut the door. “Our job is to put the best team on the field that we possibly can,” he told WEEI’s Scott McLaughlin.

That’s not exactly a vote of confidence.

To Breslow’s credit, he acknowledged the tug-of-war between patience and performance. “It’s hard to stay patient,” he admitted. “It’s hard to stay patient for all of us, Triston included.” He cited small signs of progress — better timing, more aggressive swings on hittable pitches — but that’s a thin rope to cling to with nearly a month gone in the season.

The Red Sox need Casas to hit. Not just for his own development, but because they built a lineup that assumes he will. Rafael Devers can’t do all the lifting. Boston’s margin for error is razor-thin in a competitive AL East.

Casas still has time to turn things around, but the leash isn’t what it once was. Cora’s move Wednesday made that crystal clear. If the swing doesn’t come around soon, the conversation around Casas will shift from “when” to “if.”

Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.

This article was originally published on Heavy Sports

The post Cora Benches Casas Late — Confidence Fading in Red Sox’ ‘Power Prospect’ appeared first on Heavy Sports.