‘Doesn’t Matter’: Red Sox Unbothered By Alex Verdugo Antics
Alex Verdugo hasn’t had a great couple of months, so he made sure to enjoy his game-tying home run against the Boston Red Sox on Saturday.
Verdugo took his sweet time (32 seconds, to be exact) to round the bases and make things official after belting a two-run shot off Josh Winckowski in the third inning.
Did he need to take that long?
No, but that’s just kind of who Verdugo is.
The Red Sox know that, having watched him take his time rounding the bags 44 times across his tenure with the franchise from 2020-2023, so it isn’t something that they plan on letting fester.
“No, I’ve seen that slow trot for us and we didn’t care,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “We let him do it. We were okay with it on our team, so we should be okay with it now that he’s on another team. (The Yankees) should be okay, too, with (Rafael Devers) doing what he did. It really doesn’t matter, right?”
Devers, of course, had a similarly over-the-top reaction to his own homer Saturday.
Boston eventually let things get out of hand, suffering a 14-4 loss in The Bronx, but Devers gave them a lead by crushing a Gerrit Cole fastball over the bullpen in right field — and he pimped it. It was enough to clearly draw the ire of Cole, but as Devers said postgame, you can’t pick and choose reactions to things like that.
“It was a big hit for us,” Devers said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “… They did it to us before, so nobody can get mad for those reactions. It’s just baseball.”
The Red Sox and Yankees will conclude their series Sunday, perhaps with some fireworks as both teams look for the series win at Yankee Stadium.