Worcester, MA – The Worcester Red Sox had one of their most memorable days in franchise-history on Saturday afternoon/evening as the team beat the Syracuse Mets, 9-2 and then, after the game, their manager Chad Tracy was named interim manager of the Boston Red Sox following the announcement that the Red Sox had relieved Alex Cora of his duties.
The second manager in Worcester Red Sox history, Tracy has led the WooSox to winning seasons in each of his first four years at the helm of the WooSox to become the first Red Sox Triple-A manager to accomplish that feat dating back to at least the 1930’s. Known affectionately as “Trace”, he returned for his fifth season as WooSox manager in 2026 and has the club tied for 1st-place in the International League East division with a 14-11 record thus far.
Tracy, 40, earned the 300th victory of his Worcester managerial career on August 31, 2025 in Durham. He has a 323-295 record since taking over as WooSox manager for the 2022 season. Chad became the sixth manager in modern Red Sox organizational history to reach the 300-win plateau with a Red Sox Triple-A affiliate. Joe Morgan is the all-time leader with 601 wins in his nine years as Pawtucket Red Sox manager (1974-82). “Trace” also had 176 wins in three years as a Minor League manager in the Los Angeles Angels’ system from 2015-17 giving him a total of 499 career managerial wins including Worcester’s 14 wins to start the 2026 season.
Tracy has sent a number of Worcester players to Boston during his tenure including OF Roman Anthony, INF Marcelo Mayer, and LHPs Connelly Early & Payton Tolle who all earned their first-ever promotions to Boston during the 2025 season. Other past or current Red Sox who have played for Tracy in Worcester include: OF Wilyer Abreu, RHP Brayan Bello, INF/OF Kristian Campbell, 1B Triston Casas, RHP Kutter Crawford, OF Jarren Duran, INF Romy Gonzalez, RHP Tanner Houck, OF Ceddanne Rafaela, INF Nick Sogard, OF Nate Eaton, and catcher Connor Wong among several others.
Tracy was a star catcher at Pepperdine University where he was the West Coast Conference Player of the Year in 2005 when he led the WCC with a .367 batting average. He was selected by the Texas Rangers in the third round of the 2006 First-Year Player Draft. In nine professional seasons, all in the minor leagues (2006-13) and independent Atlantic League (2013-14), Chad hit .267 with 159 home runs and 706 RBI. He reached Triple-A in 2010 with Oklahoma City and in 2011 with Round Rock (both Texas Rangers’ AAA affiliates) and had his best season with the Express in 2011 with 26 HR, 109 RBI, and 80 runs scored in 134 games.
He began his managerial career in 2015 with Burlington (Iowa), the Angels’ low-A affiliate in the Midwest League. Jim Tracy, Chad’s father, played in the Major Leagues and served as a big league manager for 11 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers (2001-05), Pittsburgh Pirates (2006-07), and Colorado Rockies (2009-12).
Chad currently lives in Fairfield, OH (just outside of Cincinnati) with his wife Emily and their 11-year-old daughter Avery and 7-year-old son Austin.
As far as Saturday’s game in front of a sell-out crowd of 8,079 fans at Polar Park, Tracy played a pivotal role early on in the game noticing what turned out to be a rare baseball oddity. Syracuse SS Jackson Cluff led off the 3rd inning with a triple down the rightfield line that WooSox RF Kristian Campbell nearly caught with a spectacular diving attempt. (Campbell would later make a sensational diving catch as he continues to play excellent defense in the outfield).
When the next hitter in the inning came to the plate, catcher Ben Rortvedt, WooSox manager Chad Tracy alertly called the umpires over to point out that the Mets had batted out of order according to the official lineup card that had been exchanged at home plate with the managers and umpires before the game. Trace was right, as usual, and the umpires called Rortvedt out (without ever seeing a pitch), took away the triple from poor Cluff, and made him bat again in his correct spot in the lineup. Cluff flied out and the WooSox escaped the inning unscathed.
The WooSox (14-11) received strong pitching from five different hurlers, took advantage of 13 walks from Syracuse pitchers, and got big games from SS Nick Sogard (2 hits, 3 walks, 2 RBI and 2 runs) and LF Nate Eaton (3 hits, 1 RBI) to roll past the Mets (13-12) and take a 3 games to 2 lead in the series with the finale on tap for Sunday afternoon.
Issac Coffey was sharp as the WooSox starter going the first 3 innings and allowing just 1 hit and 1 walk with 5 strikeouts. Angel Bastardo followed for his second relief outing since joining the WooSox earlier in the week and he tossed 2 hitless innings with 2 strikeouts. Devin Sweet worked a hitless 6th inning. Kyle Keller was charged with two unearned runs in his 2 innings and Tommy Kahnle closed it out in the 9th.
Worcester left 7 runners on base in the first three innings without scoring, but finally broke through to score the game’s first run in the 4th inning. They did so without the benefit of a hit. Vinny Capra led the frame with a walk, Jason Delay was hit by a pitch, and Sogard walked to load the bases. Mickey Gasper followed with an RBI groundout and even though the Sox would leave two more runner stranded, they had a 1-0 lead.
Through 5 innings the WooSox had left 11 runners on base, but they again took advantage of some Syracuse wildness (the Mets walked 13 Sox batters in the game) to score 2 runs in the 6th-inning. Sogard led with his third walk of the game (he has 24 walks on the season to tie for the league lead) and Gasper followed with another free pass. After an out, Campbell cracked his second hit of the game to drive in Sogie. Anthony Seigler ripped a grounder to second that scored Gasper to up the Sox lead to 3-0.
The Sox broke things open with 3 runs in both the 7th and 8th innings with the last three runs coming off Syracuse catcher turned reliever Onix Vega who had to pitch the 8th inning for the Mets.
The finale of the 6-game series (and this WooSox homestand) will take place tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon at 1:05 pm at Polar Park. Worcester will start RHP Jack Anderson (1-0, 3.72), who recently returned to the WooSox after a successful week stint with Boston, against Mets righty Jonah Tong (1-1, 5.66) who beat the Sox in the series-opener last Tuesday.
With the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins both in action on NESN+ & NESN respectively on Sunday afternoon, the WooSox game will air on tape delay on NESN+ following the Red Sox post-game show later on Sunday. Worcester’s game can be heard live on NASH 98.9 FM and the WooSox Radio Network.