AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ASTROS VS RED SOX

October 22, 2021

Alex Cora

Minute Maid Park

Boston Red Sox

Postgame 6 Press Conference

Astros - 5, Red Sox - 0

ALEX CORA: I'll start. I want to congratulate the Houston Astros, Mr. Crane, Dusty, and the group for an amazing series. The American League is well-represented in the World Series. That's a great team. They have a great program. They're doing an outstanding job, and they deserve to be in the World Series. With that...

Q. Alex, just how tough was the last couple of games, and what did you tell your team after the series?

ALEX CORA: I told them how proud I am. It's an amazing group. It's a group that we will always remember. In the offseason trying to recruit players and trying to buy into the concept that we were going to be good, it was hard. But at the end of the day, we did an amazing job to have that meeting. Not too many teams can say that they're in the League Championship Series, and I know it doesn't sound great, to have that meeting it means something, right?

And we did an amazing job throughout the season. We just got beat at the end, but when we look back and everything that we went through, the thoughts of this team early in the season, it's just amazing. It was a great year. Obviously, very disappointed that we didn't win this series, but we're going to look back and we're going to be very proud of the group, the organization, and everybody that got to be part of this operation on a daily basis.

Q. Alex, when you look back at the 25 runs scored in the first three games and just three in the last three, what happened there?

ALEX CORA: What does Strommy call it? I don't know even know what he called it. Sisu. I guess that. They made adjustments. They did. Their catcher, he is really good. He is really good. He did it last year. He has done it previous years. He gets out of his script, and that's something that is very impressive. Obviously, teams pitch to the blue and the red, whatever. You know, they pitch to the blue, but he gets out of the script when he feels he has to do it.

And I think it was halfway through Game 4, I felt that they were changing, and they used the fastballs in different spots. Their righties. Especially their righties. And we just weren't able to catch up with the fastball. They expanded, obviously, with the sliders. They always do that. But I do believe halfway through that game, we weren't able to catch up with the fastball, and that's why we didn't score runs.

Q. If you could talk about your best chance tonight, obviously, was the seventh inning and the steal attempt. What did you see there?

ALEX CORA: I just bet on my players. 3-2 count. We put the ball in play against a sinker-baller, we score 1. He threw like a 1.4 to second, whatever he did, and we didn't make contact, and he got thrown out. But that's one of those that it's a 3-2 count with a sinker-baller. We were trying to score one, and we felt that we had the right guy to first. The times were 1.6, 1.65, and it just mattered that their catcher just came out shooting and he made a perfect throw.

Q. It may be too soon, I don't know, but for yourself personally just to reflect on being back, what the season meant to you, what do you think it will mean to you, and how you feel right now personally?

ALEX CORA: I'm good. I'm really good, to be honest with you. Obviously, disappointed and sad that we didn't pull this off, but I've been good for a while. There were a lot of good things that happened, not only professionally, but personally that I was able to see a lot of people enjoy baseball again. And for them to be able to do that, that's what it's all about. My boys, they're 4 now. The first time here in '17, they were 3 months old when we won the World Series, and then they were here the next year, and they were running around, and they were 1. And tonight they were in the stands just watching baseball, and to see them do that, it means a lot to me, but personally, it's been great. It's been amazing.

Q. What did you see from Nate tonight?

ALEX CORA: It was good. He was good. Really good. Good fastball. Good split. Good breaking ball. In control. That guy, he is really good. He hit the ball in the air and we didn't make a play in left center and they hit the triple down the line, right? But Nate was outstanding. We pitched well. We pitched well.

The way this game goes, we have Adam against Correa, we get the ground ball, but it's too slow. We were looking for a ground ball there, it's get a double play to end the inning. It didn't happen and we made a mistake, and they made us pay. They made us pay throughout the whole series. I don't know how many runs they scored with two outs, but that's what good offensive teams do. They did an amazing job using the whole field too.

Q. Throughout the season you talked about this being a good team that could be very good if they executed well. Now that it's over, did this surpass what you could have reasonably expected from this season?

ALEX CORA: We had bigger goals, but to be honest with you, I'm very proud of the group. I mean, we started off well. Then we kind of ran out of gas for a little bit, and then we came back. And then at one point we were going to play a four-team playoff, and we win the Wild Card game. We win the division series. We just got beat by a great group of guys, a great team. That's a really good team.

Q. You just touched on it with Ottavino and Correa, but how much did you consider just wanting to get Whitlock into this game just because he was your best guy, your best reliever?

ALEX CORA: Obviously, we had a lot of -- we were trying to get a ground ball double play there. And Adam was really good throughout the playoffs. He just left the fastball middle-middle. We can talk about this guy or that guy, whatever. We have to execute. And we got the ground ball we wanted. Just it was slow, and then we left the fastball right up the middle.

Q. When Nate got out of that jam in the fourth, what was kind of the feeling in the dugout after that?

ALEX CORA: Yeah, that was one of the things we talked about certain guys not beating us, right? You strike out Correa and then he got Tucker out, right? Struck him out. And then Yuli, he can go somewhere else and swing the bat, right? Then he made pitches, and it just felt kind of like the same way probably they felt a few days ago when we had chances like that and we didn't score.

But offensively we didn't put too much. We didn't do enough. Their guy was really good. Velocity was up again. The breaking ball was outstanding. They worked ahead tonight again, and we never had a chance. Offensively it seems like he was just on top of us, and we didn't put good swings.

Q. You mentioned Game 4, about halfway through Game 4 you began to notice that they were making adjustments. Obviously, you have meetings. How intense were those meetings after Game 4 going into 5 and 6?

ALEX CORA: We talk about it. I mean, the lefty was different. I think the biggest change was their righties. They changed their script and we knew it, and today they started off a little bit different, but then they went to what was working. And we talk about it sometimes. It's not lack of effort. We were trying to catch up with the fastball and there were some counts that were good for us, but we just didn't do it, and they went to certain spots that they were very tough. And, yeah, I mean, it's one of those. You know, you got to tip your hat to them.