Nothing is going right for the Red Sox. What started as a hopeful season has spiraled into a frustrating mess. They’re nowhere near the .500 team they once looked like—and just when it seemed it couldn’t get worse, they dropped yet another division series, this time to the Blue Jays. A storm of bad decisions, untimely injuries, and shaky leadership has brought them here. And the manager, Alex Cora’s position is now under scrutiny.

Just a month ago, Bob Nightengale insisted, “The Boston Red Sox may be playing sloppy and mediocre baseball, but manager Alex Cora’s job is safe.” But now? A lot has changed—and none of it for the better. The Red Sox are 4th in the AL East with a 41–44 record. And they’ve just watched three straight series go down the drain.

Since Craig Breslow traded away the team’s best player, Rafael Devers, following the Yankees sweep, the Red Sox have gone 4–8. And there is no hope of turning things around anytime soon with a struggling roster.

And to make things worse, third baseman Alex Bregman‘s return from a calf strain is still uncertain. Now, with a crucial stretch ahead, the pressure to flip the script is massive. If this slump doesn’t wear off soon, big shakeups are expected, not just for the players, but maybe for the skipper too.

The Greg Hill Show discussed the possibility: “Who’s to say Cora’s here next year?” one of the hosts asked. They discussed whether Cora’s name is now back on the table for being fired by the trade deadline. But hey, didn’t they just give the guy a new deal last season?

“You gave Devers $300 million two years ago,” said Jermaine Wiggins, brushing off that fact. “I guess in the world of baseball, what was his contract? $21 million? So what’s that in the world of baseball? When you start to look and you ask the question — is the guy in that clubhouse, are they buying into the message he’s giving them? Or is it time for a new voice in there? And this is just my opinion — if I were Craig Breslow, I would want to bring in my own guy,” Wiggins added.

As of now, the possibility of the team letting go of Cora can’t be completely ruled out, even though they signed him to a three-year, $7 million-a-year deal recently. What the Red Sox need right now is stability, at any cost.

This wasn’t the case just a few weeks ago when Craig Breslow had expressed full confidence in Cora. “Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of confidence in Alex’s ability to lead this group, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have conversations every day about what we might be missing or what more we can do. But we obviously made a commitment to Alex,” Breslow had said when rumors first started surfacing last month.

The situation has clearly worsened since then. There’s no argument about that. The coming weeks heading into the All-Star break are critical for Cora, and if he can’t turn things around, there’s no telling what might follow. The top priority now is steadying the ship amid rough waters.

With confidence at an all-time low in the clubhouse and players struggling to produce, what they needed was a push, and they got it from their manager. But it worked only temporarily.

What did Alex Cora tell his players after the first game against the Blue Jays?

The Red Sox are on one of their worst slump in recent memory. When they finished the series opener against Toronto with a 9-0 loss, it extended their losing streak to six. Their offense fell flat, the bullpen collapsed, and the result exposed deep cracks in the team.

After the shutout game, Cora didn’t hold back and delivered a straightforward message to the clubhouse: “Execute your game plan.”

“You’ve got to have conviction. You have to trust the information that is provided and go from there. Also, you have to be prepared. Every hitter has a plan. We have a group approach, but at the same time, it’s one-on-one in the end, and you have to make adjustments. You have to compete. That’s the most important thing,” the manager further added.

Maybe that boost worked, because the effect was almost immediate. They didn’t just win the second game of the series; they dominated it 15–1. Talk about a twist. They finally ended their winless skid. But the joy was terribly short-lived as they lost the series finale and handed it to the Blue Jays 2–1.

Something is wrong with the Red Sox, and they need to figure out what that is, fast. Yes, Devers’ exit and Bregman’s delayed comeback are setbacks, but it’s hard to believe those are the only concerns with this team. Whatever their strategy to end this slump is, the time to put it into action is now.