AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ASTROS VS RED SOX

October 22, 2021

Kike Hernandez

Minute Maid Park

Boston Red Sox

Pregame 6 Press Conference

Q. You, obviously, came up with the Astros a little bit. Do you remember, like, your lone home run with the Astros? You were here for a short time, you hit one home run, your first Big League home run, what do you remember about it?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: If I don't remember that one, there's something wrong with me. But, man, it just happened quick. Hit the ball, thought I hit it good. Wasn't sure it was going to go. Just ran hard, and the ball went out, and, I mean, it felt like I sprinted around the bases. But as fast as I was going, it also felt like it lasted forever. Just a lot of memories from childhood and all that. Been kind of waiting my whole life to jog around the bases for the first time in the Big Leagues. And it's one of those homers that I'll never forget.

Q. In Games 2 and 3 you had really big innings to win the game, and then the Astros had that in Games 4 and 5. How do you all get back to that, and what adjustments did you see in their pitching?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: I think, first off, the day off was much needed to just kind of flush those two games and regroup, you know, get some rest and look forward to today. I feel like their pitching is -- they did a really good adjustment. They stopped throwing that many pitches over the heart of the plate. They started executing a little bit better, and they made pitches when they had to make pitches. We left a lot of runners on base, and that was in Game 4. And then Game 5, we didn't really have much cooking. Valdez had his A game going, and we weren't able to capitalize on the very few mistakes that he made all night, and we just weren't able to put traffic, put pressure on him. With their lineup, we need to do a better job of scoring some runs early in the game.

Q. (Question in Spanish)

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: (Answer in Spanish)

Q. You had seen Bogaerts and Devers obviously in the World Series a few years ago, but playing with them every day, what has impressed you the most about those two guys?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: The fact that not enough people talk about them. Being in the National League for six years, a lot of times, you don't really get to know what's going on in the American League. And, of course, being on the West Coast, the time difference and all that, by the time their games started, we're hitting batting practice, and then we come in, and the game starts, and we never really get to watch the East Coast games.

So for some reason their names are not thrown out there enough, in my opinion. We have one of the best offensive left sides of the infield in all of baseball. Bogey is just -- he is impressive. It's just a tough at-bat, tough to strike out. He can win it with a long ball. He can slap a ball the other way. He is a complete hitter.

And then Rafi, the sky is the limit for this kid, and at his age, the at-bats are beyond impressive. His pop is ridiculous. The way that he talks to himself in the box, as impressive as it is, his at-bats sometimes tend to be funny, and it's just fun to watch. It's fun to watch.

It's been a pleasure to watch them prepare and to see how they go about it, and the way they see the game and all this. Every day they do something where you are, like, dang, these guys are special. It's been a joy to watch.

Q. I understand you haven't been here for all of this history, but the Red Sox numbers, facing elimination, deciding games after losses under Alex in the postseason, remarkable. From your viewpoint, what allows you guys to excel under those circumstances?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: The circumstances? I mean, if we don't win, we go home. I think the Wild Card game has been the only elimination game we've played thus far. But it's been weird because it's kind of felt like we've had our backs against the wall all year long. From opening day on, losing the first three games at home against the Orioles, it just felt like the sky was falling, and it was kind of like a reality check. We got punched in the face right away.

We've been battling, we've been grinding all year long, and we didn't get to this point to go out without a battle. So today, you know, we win or we go home, and at the same time, we got to a point where let's do it, let's play this game like we have nothing to lose. We're at their place. They've got two chances to finish us off, but we're going to do whatever it takes to win today, and then worry about tomorrow tomorrow. And we'll talk tomorrow, but today it's all about winning every single pitch, winning every inning, and hopefully coming out on top.

Q. I wanted to ask you about two Astros pitchers over the last couple of games. What's stood out to you about Cristian Javier and Framber? You mentioned Framber earlier. What stood out to you about those guys, whether it's their stuff or approach or anything?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: It's both. They both have really good stuff. Javier, he has a really, really good fastball that he was executing all game long. And then his breaking ball, he has two different breaking balls, and the speed doesn't really tell you that they're really slow. But his heater is really good and makes the breaking balls feel like they're slower, and they kind of never get to you. He did a good job of keeping off balance.

And as far as Valdez, his stuff was just better last game than it was in the first start of the series, and he was throwing harder. His pitches were moving a little bit later, and it just felt like his sinker had different movement than it did Game 1. I'm not going to say it took us longer than we wanted to to figure him out. We never did, but it just happened. We made a lot of really quick outs. We didn't do a job of bringing his pitch count up, and that's what allowed him to pitch really deep into the game.