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Alex Cora has a lot of things to figure out quickly with Red Sox

Alex Cora (above) helped develop many of the Astros’ key players.Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle/file/Karen Warren /Houston Chronicle/file

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You wonder what Alex Cora was thinking as he sat in the Houston dugout watching the Red Sox lose to the Astros in four games in the American League Division Series.

Was it going through his mind that he would likely be named the manager of the Red Sox in a couple of weeks? Did he think about each player and wonder, “What more could I get out of Xander Bogaerts? Or Jackie Bradley Jr.? How will Rafael Devers develop under my guidance?”

Cora certainly had a hand in bringing Alex Bregman into stardom in Houston. He’s had a hand in coaching Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve and George Springer. He’s seen what a great core looks like and now he has a chance to shape the core of the Red Sox, perhaps influencing Devers, Bogaerts, Bradley, Andrew Benintendi, and Christian Vazquez like no one else has.

At least that’s the Red Sox’ hope.

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Cora is a fresh face. He’s Latino. He has chance to bond with Boston’s growing list of Latino players. He has a chance to connect with younger players because at 42 he’s not that old himself.

He’s taking over a team that has finished on the down side of the last two Division Series. He was hired to take the Red Sox the rest of the way. He knows that. With that comes an enormous amount of pressure. Terry Francona was hired under almost the same circumstances. Grady Little had taken the Red Sox to the ALCS in 2003, but made the monumental blunder of keeping Pedro Martinez in Game 7 way too long. Little was fired. Francona was hired with the notion that he would take them the next step.

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He did. Of course, Francona had the benefit of the team signing pitcher Curt Schilling, to go along the hiring of a new manager. We’ll see if the Red Sox do the same for Cora, perhaps signing a slugger such as J.D. Martinez or Eric Hosmer to enhance a lineup that’s close to the one Cora is leaving in Houston.

Cora has to be thrilled for the new assignment. He’s wanted to be a manager since he retired as a player in 2011. He knew what he wanted to do. He spent some time as an ESPN analyst, enough time to know that he wanted to achieve his goal of managing someday.

His name was the hot one because he was the bench coach on the hottest team. If Houston manager AJ Hinch was successful, his bench coach had to have something to do with it, right? Major League Baseball managerial searches are all about perception, and the perception was that Cora was the next great thing.

Dave Dombrowski, to his credit, pounced on that. While Dombrowski in past lives has hired older, experienced managers such as Jim Leyland, for the second straight managerial search he’s gone for a novice. Dombrowski hired Brad Ausmus for his first managerial job in Detroit, and now he has tabbed Cora for his first managerial job in Boston.

Be patient, Red Sox fans. There will be growing pains. There were for Ausmus. There are for every first-time manager. Cora, who will get to name his coaching staff, might lean on some experienced, veteran coaches, but in the end he’s responsible for every decision that will be made.

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He will have to tune out the talk shows. He will have to stop reading the newspapers and the websites. This will be different than anything he’s experienced. Oh, you can take plenty of heat as a player, but utility players, as Cora was, don’t usually get a lot of heat. In fact, most of the time they are beloved fan favorites, and media favorites. Cora always has been media-friendly, especially having worked at ESPN, so he gets that part of it. He should be a breath of fresh air for the media here in Boston.

The Astros are the only baseball franchise that doesn’t allow its coaches to speak with the media without permission. They’ve decided they only want Hinch speaking about the issues of the day. Who knows if Cora will demand that in Boston?

Frankly, we have no idea how Cora will handle the media, the players, and game situations. We think — and the Red Sox certainly thought this in hiring him — that he’ll be just fine. But it’s Boston. It’s an unforgiving fan base, a city that looks at everything through a magnifying lens when it comes to the Red Sox’ manager.

It’s not like Cora doesn’t know that.

The upside to this move is that Cora’s youthfulness might engage the players more than John Farrell did. Maybe Cora will step into the clubhouse more and chat it up with the players. Maybe the players will come to really like and respect him as someone who understands what they’re going through more because he’s closer to their age.

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As he looked at the Red Sox team his Astros beat, Cora had to wonder how a team with two 17-game winners could have lost the first two games of that series. Why weren’t they prepared? Why did a player such as Bogaerts, so talented, so athletic, bomb so much when it counted most. And why isn’t this guy a better player than he’s shown?

How does the best closer in the AL come into a key game and implode like Craig Kimbrel did? Is there something not being done to prepare these guys or to get them ready for high-stakes situations?

And does Cora have a plan for David Price? How will Cora win his respect? How will Cora get Price to be a big-time performer again, and act like a $31 million-a-year pitcher? Whom should Cora hire as his pitching coach to get the best out of what should be a great staff? How will he turn Rick Porcello around?

These are all questions Cora must have answers to. He will not get a lot of time to figure out these issues. He has to hit the ground running from spring training on and solve problems quickly. He has to hire the right coaches with the right messages and ones who will take his leadership and perform their duties superbly.

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There was really no reason for Farrell to be fired, but that doesn’t matter now. Cora is in charge and there can’t be any excuses about being a rookie manager getting his feet wet. You don’t get to do that in Boston. You have to act like you’ve done this before or it could be a long three years.


Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickcafardo.