Cora's managing scared and painting himself into corners with his reliever usage. On Aug. 26, he continued with Whitlock, Richards, Barnes with the Sox up 10-2.
On the 27th, he did fine. (Despite a screwball lineup and committing lead-off to a callup.)
On the 28th, he used everyone, knowing Houck was starting the next day. By the end of the day he'd traded a coin-flip extra innings win for a gassed pen with a 4 inning starter the following day.
And then he got a no-hitter through 6. . .and couldn't land the plane.
Last night he had Sawamura up along with Espinal - but thankfully, he just let Espinal finish since the A.C. Aggressively ran aground somewhere south of Fairbanks.
I will say I agree with Romine about Cora's usage of the pen the since the ASB. I've mentioned this before, but I think Cora smartly spreads innings and position player starts around the first half of the season. I think this is important for several reasons which I won't go into here, but they're obvious. However, Cora's has had two big left feet, certainly in the last month at least, when the team needed to kick things into a different gear. Of course there's been worse than a regression to the mean with the bullpen, so in some instances he's just had bad choices (like last night). Then again, the fraying of the pen is partly attributable to his quick triggers all around, burning too many arms in too many games too often.
An example would the game 7/28, Romine refers to above. Pulling Whitlock then burnt Perez and subsequently, and more importantly, Ottavino. It made no sense to put Perez in there (did anyone really think he's finish the inning?).
The quick triggers of Houck and Pivetta, famously, in the front games of doubleheaders when both were cruising on low pitch counts (73 and 58 respectively), caused all kinds of cascading troubles. (We see Cora has kind of learned his lesson there, by stretching both those guys in subsequent games, though ironically he pushed them when they weren't exactly cruising, revealing maddeningly brilliant reverse instincts, or the troubling penchant for overcompensation ...). There are many other examples, and I'll say, on the honor system, these are not hindsight criticisms on my part.
Then again, like, Barnes is now terrible and before he was playing at an all-star level. Had he maintained his first half performance, the whole season looks different right now. Sawamura, Taylor, and Ottavino, all looked stellar for a long stretches, and all are wobbly now.
I guess my point is, both things are true. Cora over taxed them, and has made a whole host of dubious decisions along the way, AND, well, some guys have regressed so much, that their drop off can't be attributable purely to usage. It's just a shit sandwich combo platter feedback loop of epic proportions.
And now COVID. So ... they only answers, it seems, are getting longer starts (and Cora learning how to ride out or not ride out a starter given his work THAT DAY, rather than just making formulaic - or compensatory - switches), and letting the young talent try to rise to the occasion.