With Julio Lugo having committed 11 errors in 38 games, it makes perfect sense for the Red Sox to turn to Alex Cora as a defensive replacement late in games. The vast majority of the time anyway.

The Red Sox made the move again in the ninth inning Monday in a 7-0 game with Jon Lester's no-hitter on the line. The whole reason for going to Cora is that he's the sure-handed one, especially at the moment. Lugo had already made one bad throw in the game, though Kevin Youkilis was able to handle it. But the idea in the ninth inning Monday should have been to prevent hits. Lugo has the greater range of the two, and if he happened to commit an error in a 7-0 game, well, so what? It ended up not mattering, of course, but if Cora had come up a little short on a ball up the middle, it would have been pretty embarrassing.