WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Alex Cora sat in the first-base dugout at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches a few minutes before 11 a.m. and a few hours before the Red Sox's game with the Astros would end -- in 2:23, thank you -- with a 4-4 tie. But for now, the field in front of him was suddenly empty, even of groundskeepers, like a blank canvas ready for the Spring Training day to come.

It was the first day of March, and in baseball, a time still full of possibilities -- even when your team finished in last the year before, the way Cora’s did.

“This is a perfect group to turn the page, the kids and the veterans we’ve brought in,” Cora said. “You’d be amazed at how little talk there is about the past around here. Don’t take this the wrong way, but they’re not worried about Bogie [Xander Bogaerts] being in San Diego now or [Christian] Vázquez being with the Twins. They’ve got their own story to write.”

I asked him if that’s his message to his team about the season that begins for real on March 30 at Fenway Park against the Orioles, a team that finished ahead of Cora’s Red Sox in 2022.

“The message is that we need to get better,” Cora said bluntly. “If we get better, we’re not going to finish last. If we suck, we will.”

They all turn the page now, the manager included, as they do try to make this season better than the last one, with Rafael Devers, who will likely now be with the Red Sox until the end of his career; power-hitting kids like Triston Casas; veterans like Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen and Adam Duvall; and the Japanese star Masataka Yoshida. Then there are veteran pitchers like Chris Sale and Corey Kluber trying to recapture old magic the same way the Red Sox are.

It was five years ago that Cora managed the greatest team in Red Sox history to a World Series, the team’s fourth in this century. It was just two years ago that Cora’s Sox were just two victories away from going back to the Series before their bats went quiet against the Astros. Only now the Red Sox have finished in last in their division two out of the last three seasons and four out of the last nine.

“Things change in this game, and sometimes very quickly, and not always in the way you want them to,” Cora said.

He nodded in the direction of the Astros’ dugout. He was A.J. Hinch’s bench coach there in 2017 when the Astros won the World Series, the year before Cora went to Boston and won it all as a rookie manager.

Everybody knows about the sign-stealing scandal that surfaced after the 2019 season. Hinch lost his job with the Astros because of it, and Cora would lose his job in Boston for the 2020 season before being hired back.

But that’s not the kind of change Cora was talking about Wednesday morning.

“You know how many players are left over there from the 2017 season?” he asked. “Three. You know how many players are left from when we won in ’18? Three. You can look back as much as you want, until you realize the past doesn’t help you get to where you want to go.”

The night the Red Sox won the World Series against the Dodgers in ’18, Sale struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth to get the last three outs. Vázquez was behind the plate. Mookie Betts ended Game 5 in right field at Dodger Stadium, having no idea he’d be playing there two years later as a Dodger, and on his way to another World Series title. Andrew Benintendi, who probably saved the Red Sox against the Astros in the ALCS with one of the most important outfield plays in October history, was in left. J.D. Martinez started that game in right field.

Of that group, only Sale is still in Boston. He started two games last season, and nine the year before that. In 2020, he didn’t pitch at all, undergoing Tommy John surgery during Spring Training that year.

The script changes. Cora’s old team, the Astros, has continued to be a powerhouse of the sport, winning two World Series in the past six seasons. The Orioles, who finished no better than fourth in the AL East the last six seasons, passed the Red Sox last season.

Cora, one of the bright minds in the game, is trying to pick Boston back up. But a lot has happened to him since he left the Astros.

He got knocked down when he was dismissed before the ’20 season. He and the Red Sox got up the next year, though, and seemed to be on their way back to the Series when they lost control of a 2-1 series lead over the Astros in the ALCS. The Red Sox went down then, and stayed down last season.

Now the Red Sox look to get back up again.

“We need to write a better story,” Cora said.

His players were on the field now. Time for him to get to work, time for all of them to begin what their fans want to be the real work this season: Making the Red Sox look like the Red Sox again.