These two Alex Cora mistakes cost the Red Sox a golden close-out opportunity

Baseball is an awfully fickle game.

Just 24 hours or so ago, Alex Cora was the toast of New England. After his Boston Red Sox rallied to stun the New York Yankees in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card series, all anyone wanted to talk about (well, aside from the continued brilliance of Garrett Crochet) was how badly Cora had outclassed his counterpart Aaron Boone. And for good reason: While Boone was getting too cute trying to tinker with both his pitching staff and his lineup, Cora was cool, calm and collected, letting Crochet ride into the eighth inning and deploying his pinch-hitters at the perfect time.

But, especially in the postseason, you're only as good as your most recent performance. And as much as Cora helped put the Red Sox in position to win Game 1, he put them behind the 8-ball in Game 2 — a huge part of the reason why Boston will be back at Yankee Stadium for a do-or-die Game 3 on Thursday rather than moving on to the ALDS already.

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3. Starting Brayan Bello

To be clear, Cora isn't the only reason Boston was on the losing end of a 4-3 thriller on Wednesday night. Jarren Duran handed the Yankees a critical run by failing to corral a very catchable Aaron Judge liner, while Nate Eaton (and third-base coach Kyle Hudson) cost Boston another when he failed to head home as an errant throw trickled away from first base in the top of the seventh. Oh, and starting pitcher Brayan Bello allowed two runs and five baserunners in just 2.1 innings of work, forcing Cora to try and piece together more than six frames with his bullpen. If you want to make a list of Red Sox who came up small in an eminently winnable game, you'll be at it a while.

Still, that list has to have Cora at or near the top. Start with the decision to start Bello in the first place: He'd struggled a bit in September, but the value proposition was his length, an ability to get deep into the game and save your bullpen a bit in the event of a Game 3 on Thursday. If Cora was always planning on being that aggressive, why not go with a higher-upside option like lefty Connelly Early, who will now start Game 3? Instead, Boston got the worst of both worlds.

2. Asking Ceddanne Rafaela to lay down a bunt

And things would only get worse from there. Aaron Boone inexplicably left a clearly flagging Carlos Rodon in to start the seventh inning, only to watch his lefty give up a walk and a hit batter before being pulled in favor of Fernando Cruz. That gave Boston a golden chance to take the lead, with two on and no out in a 3-3 game.

Next up was Rafaela, Boston's speedy center fielder. Cora asked him to bunt despite the fact that he very clearly wasn't comfortable with trying to do so, and the results were ... predictable:

Handing the Yankees an out when their pitching staff was taking on water felt like a huge mistake at the time, and it loomed even larger after Cruz got Trevor Story to fly out to the warning track in dead center to escape the jam without allowing a single run. Somehow, though, that wasn't Cora's biggest blunder of the night.

1. Sticking with Garrett Whitlock come hell or high water

Having faith in Whitlock is perfectly understandable; he's been tremendous as a bridge to Aroldis Chapman all year, with a 2.25 ERA and 91 strikeouts in 72 innings during the regular season. But there's having faith in a guy and then there's riding him into the ground, and it felt like Cora fell into the latter on Wednesday.

Whitlock sailed through the seventh without much issue, allowing one hit while striking out two over 16 pitches. Given Whitlock's ability to go multiple innings — he was a starter not all that long ago — and how much Cora had already asked of his bullpen, asking him to get the eighth as well made sense on its face. And Whitlock got the first two batters with relative ease.

From there, though, the wheels came off. Whitlock walked Jazz Chisholm Jr., putting the go-ahead run on first with two outs. At that point, the righty was at 32 pitches — and with lefty Austin Wells due up and Aroldis Chapman warming in the bullpen, it felt like now was the time to make a move. After all. Wells is New York's starting catcher, and with his backup Ben Rice already in the starting lineup, Aaron Boone couldn't even think about pinch-hitting for him. Yes, Chapman had gotten four outs in the previous night and Cora likely didn't want to ask that of him again, but was a fading Whitlock really preferable?

Cora thought so, and it came back to bite he and the Red Sox:

Wells wore Whitlock down over a seven-pitch at-bat, and by the time he hung a 3-2 changeup, the catcher knew exactly what to do with it. He lined one down toward the right-field corner, scoring Jazz Chisholm Jr. from first with the eventual winning run.

Again, Cora is hardly the only person to blame here; the Yankees did everything they could do cough this game up, and Boston declined at every opportunity. But he also failed to maximize his roster, and now he's also put them at a disadvantage with a depleted bullpen entering a must-win game on Thursday.