AL WILD CARD SERIES: RANGERS VS RAYS

October 3, 2023

Bruce Bochy

Tropicana Field

Texas Rangers

Pregame Press Conference

Q. You guys won 90 games this year, and I think that your local media, myself included, have spent the last 10 days talking about everything that's wrong with this team. Can you talk a little bit about what you feel like you guys have done really well this year?

BRUCE BOCHY: Yeah. First of all, I think you have to look at the talent on this ballclub. We had six guys make the All-Star team, so it shows you that this is a really good ballclub.

Now, we've had to deal with a lot, of course, a lot of injuries, which a lot of clubs have. But what this club has shown all year is a lot of heart -- a lot of heart. After some tough losses, some tough streaks, they just do a great job of being resilient and bouncing back.

So that's what I'm proud of about this team is how they haven't let the adversity affect them, how they come out every day ready to play.

Q. Is Sunday for you -- was Sunday another one of those adversity moments? Like do you have to bounce back now, or do you feel like you're in a good spot going into the playoffs?

BRUCE BOCHY: Yeah, Sunday is over, so we're not even thinking about Sunday now. Sure, there's always disappointment after a loss. And obviously that was a big game, and we were doing all we could to win that ballgame, but it didn't happen.

What matters now is how you deal with it, how you handle that. And these guys, getting back to what I was just talking about, have done a good job of handling this in the right way. Once we get here, get to Tampa, that this team would be very excited about being in the postseason, and they are.

Q. What has this last week or so been like for you, from Anaheim to Seattle and now here? It feels a little bit like an emotional roller coaster, everything that's happened?

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, it has been. It's been a roller coaster. You've got that right.

We're fighting to get to the postseason. We've had our ups and downs. We got off to a great start, and then we had to deal with a lot. And then August, great start to the month, and then next thing we know, we're in third place at one point.

But like I said, this team has done a great job of bouncing back. And here we are going into Seattle; we need to win a ballgame. We lose the first one after having the lead 2-1 in the ninth, we lose that one. But they found a way in Game 3 to get it done.

It's been a little bumpy, the ups and downs, but it's been a great ride.

You have to savor it, enjoy these rides, appreciate them. It just goes to show you it's not that easy. The last lap is always the toughest, and we found that out.

Hey, we're here, so just looking forward to a great series.

Q. What has Jordan Montgomery meant since coming to your ballclub and stabilizing the rotation?

BRUCE BOCHY: I agree with you, he has stabilized this rotation. With the injuries, losing Aid, and of course Scherzer, earlier deGrom, we needed somebody to step up and help us. Dunning has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting both in the pen and the rotation. Jordan has been so consistent in giving us six or seven innings, and that became an issue with us there for a while, but he's the guy that's been doing that.

Great job by our front office getting him here.

Q. I'm just curious about the overall thought about this team and how you've tried to infuse your culture into this clubhouse. You guys have been through a lot, but can you talk about the underlying tones that you want to bring to your team in terms of creating the culture moving forward, regardless of what happens in this playoff series?

BRUCE BOCHY: Right. Well, the one thing I really wanted to create was a sense of unity here, and that's to play as one. That was the message in Spring Training. Hey, we're in this thing together, and really the only way it's going to work is if we do that, and that's to create that environment.

That doesn't just happen. It happens because you work at it. These guys have done a great job working at it and even talking about it. And so I just get a good feeling that the culture -- it started with Chris Young, obviously, and it comes down to myself, our staff and the players.

I've just got a good feeling early in the season that this team, that's how they wanted to approach it. I think their sense of confidence with the new players that were brought in, the pitchers, I think that sends a sense of confidence, too, that hey, we're good, but we've got to play together here, and have that cohesiveness, that togetherness that you need to be a winning ballclub.

Q. Did that unity allow you to have this resilience that we've seen?

BRUCE BOCHY: I think so, yeah. I think so. I think that's how it happens. They're all pulling for each other. They're all helping each other, supporting, or maybe even getting on each other, holding each other accountable to going out there and doing things right. Yeah, that's part of it.

Q. Eovaldi is for sure Game 2, right?

BRUCE BOCHY: Yes.

Q. What did he show you Friday night? I know it started out great, but it seemed like his stuff was there for a couple innings and maybe he's cleared some obstacles?

BRUCE BOCHY: No, stuff was there. It wasn't where we were hoping it would be, I'm sure where he was hoping it would be. I'm talking about the delivery, the stuff, everything. And they just found a way to get some hits there. Had a couple long innings. I could have left him out there. It was still a ballgame at that time. The one ground ball that got through, that's at somebody, he's out of that inning. He goes a little bit further, but he had to throw a lot of pitches the last couple innings.

But no, he showed the stuff and really the command. I think you look at the early go in that game, he was the need that we know.

Q. Also, does Tampa Bay, the way they go about things, make your job harder?

BRUCE BOCHY: You have to go a little bit further with that.

Q. With the way they utilize platoons and matchups --

BRUCE BOCHY: Come on, it's a really, really good team. Cash does a great job. They had 99 wins. They've got really good pitching, and they have a lot of versatility. Their left-, right-handed bats, got three lefties on the bench, three righties today. Yeah, they have the ability to platoon, more so than us. We don't do a lot of pinch-hitting, as you know, but they're a team that has that flexibility to put guys at different positions.

It's a very balanced club, too. They have speed. They can run. They play the game well.

Q. You've been in postseasons more than almost anybody and had amazing success. I'm curious how you approach it now than in your earlier days managing, whether it be with San Diego in the postseason or all those years with the Giants. Do you approach postseason the same way? Have you learned anything about yourself as a manager? Not any old games, do you manage them the same, more aggressively? Do you appreciate the moment differently? How are you compared to your earlier days as a manager?

BRUCE BOCHY: I don't know how much different I do things, but to your point, I think I appreciate them now more than ever. I've been on the other side a lot of years.

You have to really savor what happens when your team gets to the postseason. You appreciate the ownership, front office that gave you the resources, the tools to get there. I enjoy it more. I'll be honest.

A lot of people go, well, was that fun. Well, I don't know if fun is the right word, especially early years, but you do have to enjoy more and just embrace it and be thankful.

Now, I think you don't play quite the same, to be honest. I mean, there's no margin for error or not as big a margin of error as you have during the season. So yeah, things are done a little bit different, as they should be, how you handle pitching or moves that you make. It's not like you can go well, I'm going to save my pitching for tomorrow. It's a little bit different game now.

Q. I think I asked you this a couple days ago in Seattle, but Jonah has caught a lot of games in a row. What are you seeing from him? It doesn't seem like he's tiring, but it seems almost different these days.

BRUCE BOCHY: Yeah, he was a horse for us. But that's not something that hasn't been done.

It's funny, when you look at the other catchers that were in the same situation, they were out there every day, too. It just goes with the territory when you're in the race to win your division. But I thought he handled it well. In fact, he got really, I thought, the biggest hit in Game 3 with the two-strike hit that added a couple more runs. But his catching has been really good. Here he caught the last game, a day game, 12:00 game, after coming back from the other game, and we lost 1-0. Great job by him handling Dunning and Martin Perez and of course Hernandez.

No, he's handled it fine. I'm really proud of him. He came to go every day. I got him off the field a couple times when things went awry with the game. But no, I thought he did a good job of being able to manage the workload that we threw at him.

Q. With your extensive travel schedule as of late, was there anything special that you did to try and energize your ballclub coming into this, or are we at the postseason and you don't even need to worry about that?

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, I think the one thing I wanted to do was just get them away from the ballpark yesterday. We had a couple guys that came in, threw bullpens. I think one guy hit in a cage. But I thought that was probably the most important thing we could do at this point.

It's a five and a half hour flight from Seattle, tough loss, a grind of a schedule. We got into Seattle, I don't know what time it was, 3:00 in the morning from Anaheim. I'm still trying to figure out how it's still going on with these late flights.

But I just wanted them guys to get away and reset. I thought that was the most important thing for them right now.