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00:00and that's where i want to start because uh i think we all felt a little momentum coming out
00:04of atlanta you win a series and we tune in last night and everybody's talking about how the
00:08pitching is set richard fitz going to extend him a little bit we got hunter dobbins ready
00:11and boom right right there you're down six nothing what is that like that that roller
00:16coaster of momentum is it hard for you as the face and voice of this team to kind of stay
00:21upbeat in those weird situations like that no in that spot um you forget all that stuff that you
00:27said and it's like how are we gonna get 27 outs yeah uh understanding that uh the bullpen has been
00:34used a lot the last 15 days that we still have two more games in this series and uh we still have
00:42eight more innings to play right so you balance everything too because as you know fitz just
00:50came off the il and uh he made 40 something pitches that's not great uh do we send him for one more
00:57training to help uh get three outs and help everybody in the bullpen we decided to go with
01:01uh dobbins and he did an amazing job and then all of a sudden winning the game right and uh
01:06it's tough uh then you think about it you're like how we we beat atlanta two out of three
01:12we get home let's get to a good start it didn't go so uh you know um we got bayou tonight uh we should
01:21be okay i think the bullpen is in a better spot and hopefully we win and give us a chance to win
01:25the series tomorrow alex just uh you know going in these games uh your your your pitching coach
01:29andrew bailey do you you you guys talk the strategy and plan out what you guys uh want to do before
01:36before games how's that process like with you and him yeah there's a lot of meetings uh you know
01:42jason uh meets with the catchers to go over hitters and uh the previous game um then uh andrew and
01:51the starter with the catchers and the game planning unit they sit down to go over hitters
01:56what's the attack plan how are we going to do this first time through the lineup second time through
02:01the lineup and hopefully third time through the lineup uh i think at the end of the day as you
02:06guys know in sports right you can have the best game plan ever but you have to execute right and
02:12yesterday we had the little guy on a one-two count we hang a slider is a homer um there was a good
02:18execute sinker inside the guy you know gets inside he's a blooper we walk a guy we have mike trout on
02:25a three-one count that's not always good so execution is something that is very important
02:30and uh you don't know what's going to happen every five days with that specific starter prepare he is
02:36but uh at the end as you know at 7 10 7 0 5 you have to do your job alex you're coming off of that
02:44series win in atlanta which i know meant a lot to you as well and you get back home and the fans
02:48are excited you're playing a team that you're expected to or favored to beat it's a beautiful
02:52night for baseball and i'm sure all losses hurt but does a loss like that last night where your
02:58team shows such heart and such compete all the way through eight innings of one run baseball from
03:03your bullpen only to come up just a run short late like that does that hurt a little bit more
03:07um it's been hurting the whole season uh like i said a few days ago um yeah we are where we are and
03:16uh like bill parcell used to say right uh you are what your record shows right and uh we have lost 16
03:24games uh by one run 16 one run games and and it's one play one pitch one decision uh put the ball in
03:33play with man third and you win the game and uh this is our season right now we have to be better
03:37um you know when when you lose games by one you you look back and it's like one walk and uh one
03:45stolen base and we have to pay attention to details because it looks like this is who we are right
03:52we're going to play a lot of close games so how are we going to start winning those is the most
03:56important thing and the message is light and clear you you have to play better defense you have to run
04:01the bases better you have to pitch better we went to milwaukee and uh they play excellent baseball for
04:08three days we made a few mistakes and they took advantage of it and look at them now they have won
04:13eight games in a row and they were struggling so i think clean baseball is very important and uh
04:19hopefully we can start doing that tonight i could give you rankings and percentages but i'm just going
04:23to keep it very simple do you guys need to throw more fastballs um i mean we always talk about that
04:33and uh first of all do we have good fastballs right that's the most important thing uh it's not
04:40always okay uh mike trout let's throw fastballs to him because right now he just came out of the il he's
04:49late if your fastball plays and uh we got a lot of information and um you know let's say i'm a
04:57starter i know my repertoire i know which one is my best pitch i know which one is my worst pitch
05:03your worst pitch it still can play in certain areas so you have to recognize your first uh the way it
05:11works and jason talks a lot about this recognize yourself as a pitcher then go over the hitter and if it
05:17matches up then you go to the weaknesses if it doesn't match up then stay with your strength
05:23you know if your strength is fastballs and mine is fastballs it's mano mano we have to go right and
05:29that's something that our our guys i think they have a pretty good idea who they are sometimes you
05:34know they execute pitches and uh i know we spin the ball a lot and uh with two strikes the difference
05:41between a homer or a 0-2 take is where you throw that breaking ball and we have to execute
05:46speaking just uh and kind of just thinking about the younger players that you have is it harder to
05:51ask them to to change fielding positions or they're placed in the in the batting lineup what how does
05:58how do those two different things kind of factor in when you're when you're uh coaching young guys yeah i
06:03think uh the defensive part of it it has to be tough uh i lived it you know i moved from short to
06:09second go back to short when i was uh a rookie in the league uh i was a good defender but it was
06:16still a little bit tougher the whole lineup part of it um is something i'm very cautious about it
06:22but obviously personnel wise this is where we at we don't have casas we don't have alex so we have to
06:28find a way to maximize the first five innings and then start thinking about matchups later on there's
06:35a reason marcelo sometimes is hitting fourth or fifth you know and uh when there's a righty in the
06:42mound we bunch our lefties we know that we have ref at one point maybe to hit for willie now we got
06:48romey that probably is going to hit for the middle infielder or the corner infielder uh you make some
06:53match and um we did it to kc at one point because he was hot he's swinging about well and now we have
07:01to downshift right now he's hitting eighth he's in ninth hopefully he can breathe a little bit and
07:05get that feeling again but uh the lineup construction is something that we take a lot of pride because
07:11it's not only about the first six we're trying to maximize that but then you start like thinking
07:17ahead okay this is a lefty that they have he might come in the seventh for jaron and rafi willie's
07:24behind them we got traffic it's ref and he has to face ref night in that spot alex when a player of
07:32yours has his name mentioned potentially in trade rumors like uh what made headlines a day or two ago
07:38that the padres could potentially be interested in trying to pry jaron duran away from you guys do
07:44you have do you have to talk to the player do they come to you if they ever hear their names in the
07:49press like that and what level of input do you have if if management even comes to you about uh possible
07:54big moves like that yeah i mean uh with the front office i'm always in conversations you know not only
08:00in the present for but the future too as far as like the rumors and all that uh i work in the
08:06industry i was in bristol for five years and i always tell him this story about jim bowden uh we
08:13were around the training deadline and we have these shows talking about trades all that we're sitting in
08:18the green room and jim is like what do you think about this trade and he was like a blockbuster move
08:23whatever and like where you got that from no i just made it up i like you see so i tell the guys
08:29i tell the guys that don't don't listen you know don't pay attention to what's going on in social
08:35media all that uh sometimes it's it's not it's not real uh just keep playing baseball that's the
08:42thing you can control and uh you know they understand that part red sox manager alex cora here
08:46with us on weei afternoons i'm kind of proud of us we've made it almost 10 minutes we haven't
08:51mentioned rafi devers or first base i was so i feel like we're due i'll leave first base to you
08:56so you've been in the media you know boston you know social media rafi devers is seen taking ground
09:01balls a shortstop at shortstop with an infielder's glove not a first baseman so what should i read
09:07with a training with a training uh training glove it was a training glove okay so what should i read
09:11into that that's part of his preparation you know uh rafi hasn't been able to take grounders in a
09:16while uh weather related or or traveling all that stuff and sometimes for him you know it's good
09:23to go out there and move his feet so uh you know he's still our dh it uh rome comes back from being
09:29on the il for 22 days uh gets a couple ribbies last night in a perfect world is see your your first
09:35baseman uh for the foreseeable future no now with the way uh toro has play uh we'll make some match we'll
09:42look for certain matchups to to maximize understanding that if rome doesn't play and
09:48there's a lefty in the middle of the game we can use him he can play third he can play second he can
09:53play first so uh where we at right now roster wise uh we're gonna make some match but uh he'll he'll
09:59get a few starts at first base too all right since we have passed the 10 minute mark i guess i'm uh i'm
10:04in the all clear as well to ask about the obvious um any update on rome and anthony further discussions
10:10within the organization and any shot we could see him i don't know maybe next week um roman is doing
10:17well he's he's uh getting better um as of now this is a roster that we have and uh we're going to
10:23continue to maximize that so uh you know we're very proud of the work he's putting down there and uh
10:29like i said uh last week right he's not knocking at the door he's uh kicking it right so we'll see what
10:34happens in the future one of those uh bella chicky and fibs you told us recently and we're fine with
10:38it i i bill lied to me for years so i don't take it too personally i i bitch on the radio for 20
10:43minutes and then i move on um but crochet was awesome the other day 12 strikeouts 112 pitches
10:48couple starts here with 100 plus pitches as observers should we now get ready to say okay
10:54there might be a game where he's going to be limited to 80 to 90 again how does that play out moving
10:59forward for us as onlook no no no obviously the schedule will dictate what we do and now we get an
11:06off day every week so uh i don't think we're going to push it to 112 every single start but uh in the
11:13range of 95 to 100 full start you know uh he is a go unless he's not recovering well and uh so far
11:21so good um that's something we talk about it uh after the game that day and for how frustrating it
11:26was for everybody that he went short uh and we could have won that game but maybe we don't have a
11:34shot to beat the braves you know it's this balancing act you know and uh this for the
11:38benefit of the player and he's feeling great and he understood the mets start and uh he understood
11:43the atlanta one he really loved that one uh we did too uh from that game chris sale is on the other
11:50side and uh when he went out in the eighth he looked at me he's like what like yeah this is where we
11:58a kid things have changed since 2018 the the leadership of gare crochet is it just i mean the
12:06guy oozes confidence you gotta love that as a manager right yeah and um i don't know if you guys
12:13have been in the clubhouse but uh the way he interacts with his teammates i saw this in spring
12:19training and and we just traded for the guy it's his first spring training with us my office is very
12:25close to the video room whenever i walk by it's gared with a reliever gary with a left-handed
12:30reliever talking about pitch sequences and grips and all that you know the guy i think uh throughout
12:37his career he's been prepared for this to be the ace of uh a team like us and i'm very happy that we
12:42have him and alex just sort of like a general baseball question as well vis-a-vis like being a
12:48manager obviously it has to have changed even so much since you first started managing the red sox back
12:54in 2018 as well with so much more data and input from pi perhaps the general managers other coaches
13:02and whatnot like do you do you prefer it this way where there's input from so many different sources
13:08that lead to the decisions or do you just like it the old-fashioned way of like the baseball manager
13:13is the guy that's in charge of all those decisions um since 2018 we've been using medical
13:19information to to dictate what we do with the rotation uh we did it early in the season we
13:25actually did it in september to to prepare the guys for the cool things that we did in october
13:31um we downloaded guys you know deload guys in in september there was one with porcello that uh
13:39he was support he went forward to get ready for october so information has always been uh provided
13:45and i use it you know for the benefit of the team just to uh tie up one loose end as we send you out
13:50the door we didn't see christian campbell at first base is that done with romey back will he still
13:54take ground balls he'll take grounders but you know we'll we'll go with toro and uh with romey i think
13:59it's more about the playing of uh abraham that uh dictate what we're gonna do play him at second
14:05hopefully get him hot that'll be good you know uh that will add some strength to the lineup and if we
14:10do that we're gonna be okay all right alex good luck tonight appreciate you joining us as always thank you guys
14:14you