Alex Cora has a 3-word message for the Red Sox ahead of the trade deadline

December 11, 2018; Las Vegas, Nevada, United States; Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora speaks to the media during the MLB Winter Meetings at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Daniel Clark-USA TODAY Sports

The Boston Red Sox are squarely in the playoff race at the halfway point of the MLB season, and manager Alex Cora wants the team’s leadership to do their part to keep it that way.

Before Boston’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays was rained out on Wednesday, Cora told reporters he thought the Red Sox could contend for the rest of the season and should operate accordingly. He summed up his thoughts with a three-word message: “Let’s be greedy.”

“I know we talked about the Wild Card and all that. Let’s be greedy,” Cora said, via WBZ’s Matt Gaegan. “There are teams in front of us that are not playing good baseball. I probably know one of them, it’s only for five days. But there is much more. I think this brand of baseball allows us to maintain the way we play.

“Let’s not settle for the third wild card. Let’s go higher and see where the season takes us.

Cora also pulled no punches when discussing how the Red Sox have handled the trade deadline the past two seasons. He hopes new baseball director Craig Breslow will take a different approach by July 30.

“Honestly, we haven’t gotten any better,” Cora said during the last two trade deadlines. “We stayed the same and the teams around us got better. I can walk you through the trading deadline as I see it. You can do this in three ways: you buy, you sell, you stay put. When you stay there, there will be teams who, they added, and they will be better than you. It’s not that your team was a bad team, but others around you got better.

The Red Sox entered Thursday tied with the Kansas City Royals for third place for the American League Wild Card. They are one game behind the Minnesota Twins for second place. Boston is seven games behind the Baltimore Orioles for first place in the Wild Card and eight games behind the New York Yankees in the AL East. Cora’s team has won eight of its last 10 games, while the Yankees have lost eight of their last 10.

Cora is in the final year of his contract with the Red Sox and he recently made some interesting comments about his future. If the team stays put at the deadline even though they’re in contention, the 48-year-old coach won’t be happy.