Alex Cora’s contract extension is a big step. The trade deadline is fast approaching.

Red Sox

Craig Breslow and his bosses will be pilloried if they don’t act at the trade deadline and provide help to the Red Sox.

COMMENT

This season has been a very long stretch for the Red Sox. Twenty-one wins in 30 games before the All-Star break. Kyle Teel lit up the Futures Game. Roman Anthony dominated the Skills Showcase. Jarren Duran, MVP of the big show.

Are you getting carried away? Sure. Following a sports team means wanting to believe in the players, the management, the success that’s coming. Almost everything can have a happy ending if you want it to, and it usually does.

Getting mauled in Colorado while Kevin Millar shows off on the NESN broadcast? Not much of value in this mess, other than that 20-7 four-error disaster Wednesday, with Cal Quantrill reminding Reese McGuire of his past indiscretions.

The consolation was that Alex Cora was convinced to forgo free agency, agreeing to a three-year contract extension that makes him the second-highest-paid manager in the game at a reported $7.25 million per year. From the outside, it seemed like a bolt from the blue, with the perception throughout the industry since the spring being that Cora wanted to explore the open market.

And that the Red Sox, living in the age of Mr. Monopoly, would never really compete to keep him.

“I talked to Craig (Breslow) a little bit,” Cora told reporters Wednesday afternoon, referring to the Red Sox architect of the moment. “There were two things I wanted: I wanted to win and I wanted security for my family. And we accomplished both.”

“In my position, you’re looking for someone who is a partner in the manager’s chair, someone who can challenge and question when it’s appropriate and do it in a productive way. Who can champion what we’re trying to do as an organization,” said Breslow, who flew to Colorado on Tuesday to finalize the deal. “I’ve seen that happen over the last few months … I’m very excited about where we are today and what I think the future holds.”

One game out of a third wild card, 13th-ranked Cooper Criswell is starting deep — seven shutout innings at Coors Field is no joke, no matter how bad the Rockies are — and yet he’s in great shape! Breslow got a standing ovation in the locker room Wednesday. He’ll get another if they put him on the videoboard Friday, when the Red Sox-Yankees game returns to Fenway with the feeling he always should have.

With four days left until the trade deadline, the hometown team just topped the market for someone.

“At some point, we have to stop with these stupid analogies (about choosing a path) and put the turn signal on,” Breslow said Wednesday in Denver. “We’ve played really good baseball the last few months. We’ve put ourselves in this position where we’re going to look to improve the team.”

Got carried away again? Damn it. Go check out the secondary ticket market. We’ve come a long way in the last two months, since the “ticket and a drink for $35.”

The optimists among you are dreaming again, the recitation of “starting pitcher, relief helper, pitching against lefties” becoming more like an incantation at this point. The curtain is up and business is done; Randy Arozarena became a Seattle Mariner while you slept.

The pessimists? Signing Cora is a positive step forward for a franchise that has been on the back foot for five years, but that’s all there is to it. That $7 million-plus should be worth more than his asking price, given how well these Sox have played for a rejuvenated Cora, and it buys a lot of goodwill with a skeptical fan base. That’s a lot for less than they’re paying 38-year-old Chris Martin.

Trevor Story’s added value made sense to Breslow’s predecessor, Chaim Bloom. It’s, to some extent, what made the manager’s massive paychecks make sense earlier this week.

Remember: value is not a dirty word in teambuilding. It is an ideal, which is why it is so easily hijacked by those seeking to hide less noble goals within it. But also, trying to build solely by finding value is usually as effective as trying to time the stock market. Irrationality often reigns, and even the most successful often lose big.

Anyone trying to read what’s happening over the weekend and through 6 p.m. Tuesday doesn’t need to look at the extremes above. Baseball’s trade deadlines in the 12-team playoff era are a perpetual seller’s market. Too many mortgage preapprovals are racing between too-low inventory, in constant fear of living in an apartment forever unless they spend $80,000 more than the asking price and forgo the inspection.

Breslow said all the right things, but within the parameters he has always used. His remarks in Colorado did not represent a profound change, in my view. Rather, they were a restatement of the principle that we should not trade future victories for present victories, no matter what the opportunity presents itself.

“Those opportunities have to be reasonable and teams have to like the players that we’re willing to move. All those things have to align,” he said Wednesday. “I think given the strength of the system, given the areas where we’re happy with our depth, it can certainly happen. Right now, the discussions we’re having are about how we can help the team.”

To me, that’s fine. That’s all one can reasonably ask for. Elsewhere? He and his bosses will be pilloried if they don’t act, although we all have our favorite examples of “the best deal is the one that doesn’t get done.” (Jon Lester/Jacoby Ellsbury for Johan Santana in December 2007 is my favorite example, even though it’s not a deal that’s due.)

It’s determination that gives me hope. Yes, the risk profile of a mega-deal with Cora is light years away from that of a roster player or cashing in on a prospect. But hasn’t our biggest complaint for years been that baseball’s GM isn’t the one making the decisions?

Last week, the manager Breslow inherited became the manager he adopted. Next week, it will be time for him to do the same with the roster, with a massive visit from the vulnerable Yankees in the background.

A Red Sox season for the sick? Color a bunch of indifferent observers sweating out mid-summer flu in the middle of winter.