Red Sox

What Alex Cora said about Red Sox starter Matt Dermody and his deleted homophobic tweet

"When you put this uniform [on], what we want is for people to be inclusive."

By Conor Ryan

June 8, 2023

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Ahead of the Red Sox’ series finale on Thursday night in Cleveland, Alex Cora addressed the controversy surrounding starting pitcher Matt Dermody and his homophobic tweet from 2021.

Boston has drawn plenty of criticism for its decision to call up Dermody to start on Thursday after MassLive.com’s Sean McAdam reported that the Red Sox were aware of the now-deleted tweet from the 32-year-old pitcher.

Dermody tweeted back in June 2021: “#PrideMonth. Homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. They will go to hell. This is not my opinion, but the #Truth. Read 1 Corinthians 6:9. May we all examine our hearts, ask Jesus to forgive us and repent of all our sins. I love you all in Christ Jesus!”

While fielding questions ahead of Dermody’s start on Thursday, Cora was asked if he approves of Dermody’s call-up and the optics involved with his hateful comments.

“He’s going to pitch and he’s here,” Cora said of Dermody, as transcribed by MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith. “Obviously as an organization, we made this decision as an organization. We’ve done a lot of stuff to educate our players on the subject. I don’t know how many organizations … do it with their employees and their players as far as educating them about being inclusive and obviously accepting everybody in the clubhouse and your work environment.

“Obviously not too many people agree with the tweet [from] Matt. I’m not here to tell him what to say or what to do,” Cora added. “But one thing for sure, when you put this uniform [on], what we want is for people to be inclusive. I think the clubhouse is a reflection of the world if you think about it.

“We’ve got people from different races, different beliefs, not only religious beliefs but politics. My job as a leader of the group in here is to maintain that clubhouse as close as possible respecting everybody’s thoughts. I think at the end of the day, what I want is for them to get along together and respect each other. And obviously compete for the same thing that I want to compete for, which is winning a World Series.”

According to McAdam, The Red Sox were unaware of the tweet when they signed Dermody in January and didn’t discover it until spring training. Chaim Bloom told McAdam that they considered terminating Dermody’s contract, but opted not to after discussing it with him.

“It’s important to us that he had taken the tweet down and important why he had done it,” Bloom said to McAdam. “I talked to him personally about that and what he told me was that it really came down to two things. One, he didn’t realize that his words would be hurtful and he didn’t want to hurt anybody and when he realized that they were, he took [the post] down.”

Bloom added: “To me, that’s why the conversations were necessary,” said Bloom. “Knowing that the tweet had been taken down and not knowing anything else, I don’t think you have enough information to make a decision… People do make mistakes. I think it’s important to understand whether they recognize them as mistakes and why. And if that’s in place, obviously then people get a chance to be judged on their behavior going forward.”

Dermody, 32, has pitched in 30 games at the MLB level over four total seasons. In nine games (eight starts) with the Worcester Red Sox this season, Dermody has a 2-2 record and a 4.50 ERA

As Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe noted, if Dermody stays in the rotation for another cycle, his next start will be on Tuesday during the Red Sox’ Pride Night game at Fenway Park.