Ron Roenicke was named the Red Sox manager in spring training after Alex Cora was fired for his role in the Houston Astros cheating scandal.
Roenicke managed a team that traded away its best player, through a season interrupted by the pandemic, and ultimately los his job after Boston finished last in the AL East.
The Red Sox told Roenicke before the final game of the season on Sunday that he will not be back in 2021, ending his tenure as a one-year, shotgun stopgap for a pandemic-shortened season with a last-place finish in the AL East.
Hurriedly hired on the eve of spring training after Alex Cora was caught cheating during his time as a bench coach in Houston, Roenicke took over a roster that would soon shed 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts and 2012 AL Cy Young winner David Price, who were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Top pitchers Chris Sale (Tommy John surgery) and Eduardo Rodriguez (COVID-19) never threw a pitch for the team this year.
“It’s hard to answer whether I think it’s fair or not. It’s baseball,” Roenicke said after the Red Sox beat Atlanta 9-1 to wind up 24-36. “In the end, I’m just not the guy that they want to move forward with. Pridefully it hurts, because I know what I’m doing. I think I got the best out of the players.”
Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom met with Roenicke in Atlanta on Sunday morning to give him the news. The Red Sox went on to win the finale; afterward, the team said their goodbyes in the visitor’s clubhouse. “That was a little tough,” Roenicke said, “a little emotional.”
Bloom praised Roenicke, who also spent five years managing in Milwaukee, for navigating the coronavirus shutdown and for holding the team together when racial protests interrupted the season. Asked whether Roenicke was in a no-win situation, Bloom said, “I think that’s a fair assessment.”
“He did a tremendous job under really challenging and basically unprecedented circumstances,” Bloom said.
Cora, who led the Red Sox to a World Series championship in 2018, is sure to get attention as a possible successor. The team split with him less than a month before spring training after he was identified as a ringleader in the Houston sign-stealing scandal.
Cora’s one-year suspension for that scandal ends after the World Series.
With Cora gone, the Red Sox promoted Roenicke from bench coach to interim manager. They removed the temporary tag in April, during the coronavirus shutdown, when Roenicke was cleared in the commissioner’s investigation into sign-stealing by the Red Sox during their championship season.
He was not given an extension on the one year he had remaining on the contract he signed as a bench coach, fueling speculation that Cora could be welcomed back.
The Red Sox dismissed such suggestions at the time, but on Sunday, Bloom refused to rule a return either in or out.
“I thought Ron deserved to be evaluated without anyone looking over his shoulder,” Bloom said, declining to comment further because “I don’t want to say anything about Alex that I haven’t said to Alex.”
SUNDAY’S GAME
RED SOX 9, BRAVES 1: Jackie Bradley Jr. homered and made a leaping catch as Boston won its season finale in Atlanta.
Bradley, heading toward free agency, gave Boston a 2-1 lead with his fourth-inning homer to left-center off Will Smith (2-1).
J.D. Martinez belted a two-run homer, the biggest hit in a fiverun seventh off Luke Jackson.
Xander Bogaerts and Jonathan Arauz also homered. Arauz had three hits and three RBI.