BALTIMORE — In the minutes after the Red Sox routed the Orioles, 17-1, on Saturday afternoon in Baltimore, Alex Cora cracked a beer, joked with players and lauded his team for playing a complete game that snapped a four-game losing streak. Postgame dinner plans were made after an early 12:05 p.m. ET start at Camden Yards.
When Cora and his staff returned to the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore, though, an organizational shakeup awaited them. Principal owner John Henry, team president/CEO Sam Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow — all of whom weren’t scheduled to be on the road trip — were waiting to inform Cora and five coaches that they had been fired, effective immediately.
The scene at the Four Seasons was one of shock. Around 8:05 p.m. ET, the trio of Henry, Kennedy and Breslow departed the hotel for dinner. Players milled around the lobby trying to make sense of the news. As players like Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony and Masataka Yoshida returned to the hotel from dinner, the crowd in the lobby grew as Cora and the fired coaches emerged with suitcases packed. An ironically named Mercedes shuttle bus — with a “Coaches4Hire, LLC” label on its side — pulled up, ready to take the group to the airport. Wilyer Abreu, Zack Kelly and Ryan Watson were among the players to arrive in the lobby to say their goodbyes. Coaches who remained on the staff, like José Flores and Parker Guinn, returned to the Four Seasons to greet their former colleagues on their way out.
In the hours after the news hit the club, the group of fired coaches drank together and reminisced at the hotel. By about 9 p.m. ET, the five fired or reassigned coaches — a group consisting of bench coach Ramón Vázquez, hitting coach Pete Fatse, first base coach Kyle Hudson, assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson, major league hitting strategy coach Joe Cronin and franchise icon Jason Varitek — assumed their seats on the shuttle. Minutes later, Cora emerged, hat backwards while pushing a carry-on suitcase, and was the last to board the van before the doors closed. In his last moments with the team, he thanked team support staff who helped arrange his exit and told them he loved them.
Cora delivered a two-word, somewhat-nebulous text to multiple reporters who reached out to him: “I’m happy,” he said. Varitek, on the other hand, took the news particularly hard despite the team saying he would be “reassigned to a new role within the organization with details of his reassignment will be announced at a later date,” according to sources.
Henry, Kennedy and Breslow returned from dinner 40 minutes later. Henry did not acknowledge a reporter standing outside the hotel and went into the lobby. Kennedy and Breslow stopped to chat and largely deferred questions to Sunday, when they will both address reporters at Camden Yards. Kennedy, though, took a moment to reflect.
“Incredibly difficult day,” Kennedy said outside the hotel. “We’ll discuss more tomorrow. Grateful to Alex for everything he has done for the organization and all the guys. We’re gonna move forward tomorrow.”
The Red Sox, partly because Saturday’s game time was moved up and that allowed players to disperse after returning to the Four Seasons, did not get together as a group to announce the news. Therefore at least some players, after hearing whispers of a shake-up, found out via social media, according to sources.
“We’re gonna meet together tomorrow as a team,” Kennedy said. “We wanted to meet with Alex before talking to anybody else.”
Kennedy, a close friend of Cora and historically an ardent supporter of the manager, spoke in hushed tones and said Saturday ranked “right up there” on the list of tough days he has had in his role. In firing Cora, the Red Sox had made an in-season managerial change for the first time since 2001, when Jimy Williams was fired in August. The news rocked the organization ahead of what was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill Sunday rubber game with Connelly Early on the mound.
In recent days, there was little to suggest massive change was afoot. Kennedy, in an uncharacteristic move, was in the home clubhouse on Monday after the Sox’ Patriots Day win. Cora was 40 minutes late for his pregame media session Friday but claimed he was on the phone with his twin sons who had just returned to Puerto Rico after a lengthy stay in Boston.
All the while, Cora’s bosses were plotting his exit, an eventuality even his team’s most lopsided win of 2026 couldn’t prevent. Over the years, when asked about job security, Cora repeated the same line, that managers sign their contract knowing they’ll eventually be fired. That happened Saturday one month into the second year of a three-year, $21.75 million contract. As he celebrated his final win as Red Sox manager, Cora’s opening line was another familiar adage. By 1 a.m. ET, there he was posing with his former lieutenants, all smiles next to the private jet that took them back to Boston.
“That’s (expletive) baseball, man,” Cora said. “It’s unreal.”
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