AL DIVISION SERIES: GUARDIANS VS YANKEES

October 18, 2022

Terry Francona

Yankee Stadium

Cleveland Guardians

Pregame 5 Press Conference

Q. We heard there was some hiccups with the accommodations last night. Can you take us through what happened and where you ended up staying and whether the guys got a good night's sleep?

TERRY FRANCONA: I didn't personally check on everybody (laughter) we had to make some adjustments just because our hotel was full. But JJ (Jared Jones) does our travel. He's outstanding, and our players are every bit -- nobody -- we're fine. We're fine. Everybody, we split up and they got it all mapped out and was no big deal.

Q. Lots of experiences in New York over the years. Where does last night rank in terms of the quirkiness, playing a Game 5, not playing, the hotel issues?

TERRY FRANCONA: I never know how to rank. I get asked that all the time. I'm not good at ranking. You just kind of show up, and if you're supposed to play, you play. And if you don't, you play when they tell you. That's kind of an easy one.

We've had a lot of experience this year in waiting. So kind of used to it.

Q. With not considering Shane on three days, is it more related to him and his health over the years, or is part of it just philosophically thinking about four versus three days and how you want pitchers to go?

TERRY FRANCONA: It's not philosophically. We've done it before. We just feel like it's the right thing to do for him and us.

Now, he's going to go out to the bullpen and if we empty our bullpen, he's out there. But we're not sending him out there as a weapon. And we recognize how good a pitcher he is. It's not because he can't pitch. Just he's been through a lot. You know, he had an injury last year, and you know, he's had a remarkable year, but it's not been probably as easy as he's made it look.

Q. And if you win today, how is your pitching lineup the next two days?

TERRY FRANCONA: Well, he would pitch tomorrow. That's his day.

Q. Game 2?

TERRY FRANCONA: You're getting so far ahead of me that, like...

Q. Not sure whether you looked that far.

TERRY FRANCONA: No, we've not even -- no. No. God, no.

Q. Changing to Cortes today, what challenge does that present?

TERRY FRANCONA: We'll see. He's been on a really good run and he's a good pitcher. We put Gonzi hitting fourth just because we try to protect Jose so much. But other than that, I mean, I think we kind of felt like they were going to do that. We'll see how he pitches. Then I'll be able to tell you after the game.

Q. The switch, would you have rather played at 1:00, as opposed to 4:00 today?

TERRY FRANCONA: I don't care. We were going to play whenever they -- we were just under the impression it was 1:00. I'm not sure that we -- we'll play whenever they tell us to. We were ready to play last night. We'll do whatever we're supposed to.

Q. Just really quickly, you said you guys were ready to play last night. If you play yesterday and are off today versus don't play yesterday and play today, like does yesterday work as a rest day, I guess, because you didn't play or does getting ready sort of negate some of that?

TERRY FRANCONA: No, I would not call it a rest day. When you're on, I think going on three hours, where you know that your button has to stay on, I would say it's probably anything but a restful day for both teams.

Q. Obviously veteran big league players get really, really used to rain outs and postponements and changes in the schedule and things like that. You mentioned how much you guys have gone through this year, I think 11 postponements during the season and now two in the playoff series. You've got a young team. The fact that you went through that during the season, do you feel a little more comfortable with how your young team handles it since it happened so much during the season in a big spot like this, as opposed to in a normal season?

TERRY FRANCONA: We feel like we have an obligation to use whatever has happened over the course of the year to our advantage. But we're at a point now where we're at like game, like, 170 or something, 168.

They are fine. I mean, we're going to go out and play, and we're going to play a really good team and we're going to see if we can be one run better. If being delayed throws us off, that's not who we are.

Q. When Boone was in here, he was talking about how they were prepared for a 9:30 start last night and players were coming into the office, they were in uniform, eye black, asking what was going on. Was it similar going on in your clubhouse?

TERRY FRANCONA: No. Our guys were -- I think most of them were playing cards or a couple guys playing chess. No. They before fine. Every time we had like a little zoom update, we would update our players and they just kept hanging out.

Q. So was there a point where they told that you 9:30 was a possibility last night in all these Zoom meetings?

TERRY FRANCONA: Well, there were so many of them. We got to a point, I think it was around 8:30 or so where I think all of us thought, okay, here we go. We just weren't quite sure what time, and then it went the other way.

Q. I would think it beneficial to play an afternoon game today rather than start at ten o'clock, don't you?

TERRY FRANCONA: Say it again.

Q. Would it be more beneficial to play an afternoon game today than start a game like this at ten o'clock?

TERRY FRANCONA: I don't know. That's not my area. We were here. We were ready to play. If they say play, we would have. If they say go home, we would have.