AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RANGERS VS ASTROS

October 21, 2023

Bruce Bochy

Minute Maid Park

Texas Rangers

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Were you happy with the lineup changes you made yesterday, and do you anticipate any others?

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, I think tomorrow, looking at a left-hander, you'll see a different lineup. But I don't have it completely done. I'm talking about it now with the staff and just looking at some things.

I did like the lineup yesterday. I think you look at the bottom of the order, I thought Mitch and Jonah did a great job a couple of times of setting up some nice rallies. We didn't quite get those guys in, but they did what we were hoping they'd do. I was thinking overall it was a pretty good lineup with what we were facing.

Q. Do you see Marcus up top?

BRUCE BOCHY: Yeah.

Q. I want to ask you, obviously, with Nathan on the hill, kind of guy you'd want in a must-win situation, also the idea of where do you see that he's gotten -- seems like he looks like he was when he was going well before he got hurt.

BRUCE BOCHY: I agree. It's a matter of getting healthy, and that's where he's at now. We did push him a little bit. There was a mutual deal that he would be used as an opener.

Looking back, could we have sent him down to rehab? Yeah, we could have, but we wanted those innings here. But he gradually got better and better and got stronger both in strength and stamina to get to where he's at now where he can go six, seven innings, 90, 100 pitches.

So he's back to where he was earlier in the season, and that's good news for us.

Q. And having him in a game you've got to win, that's got to be somewhat comforting.

BRUCE BOCHY: It is. You have his experience. Really, if you look at what Montgomery has done and now Scherzer, he's building that strength and stamina I was just talking about. Yeah, it's great to have these guys on the staff.

But particularly I think Nate, his résumé shows that he pitches well in important games. It's going to be a great matchup.

Q. I'm curious, in the ninth inning, was Josh Smith -- should he have been tagging up?

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, in that situation, you know, ideally, yeah, you'd like to get to third if you can. You don't want to get to the point where you don't score if it falls in.

Now, there's one out there. It's not as important getting to third with two outs. With nobody out, it's a different story. So if he drops the ball, he scores with one out.

So really it's his read. Now, it's a little risky. You don't want to make the third out at third, either. So it's his read. Now, if he sees it's going to be caught and it's a definite tag where he's going to get there easily, I agree, he should have tagged.

But on that one, no. After Marcus lined out, that getting to third is not so important with two outs.

Q. Even if you aren't intending on trying to reach third, at least make them make a throw?

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, once you don't tag, it's --

Q. Yeah, I mean, yeah, go back and tag, and he can make that throw --

BRUCE BOCHY: Oh, I see what you're saying, yeah.

I mean, yeah, they had a good defense out there. It would have been risky. But I don't like guys tagging, to be honest. If it's not a hundred percent deal where they think they're going to get there, even though they know they're going to catch it.

And what I'm saying there, with a good relay there, I think it would have been a close play. It's the runner's read. And we talk about this. I've seen too many times with one out where they tag, thinking he's going to catch, and he doesn't, and then he doesn't score. You see what I'm saying?

So it wasn't that critical for him to take that risk or, to your point, try to draw a bad throw, because he probably was not going to go and risk making the third out at third base.

Q. I feel like this may be an obvious question with an obvious answer, but how important is it for Corey and Marcus to get things going tomorrow, to get things started and kind of keep it going, I guess you would say?

BRUCE BOCHY: Yeah, well, it's critical to our offense, no getting around it. They're our main guys, when you look at that along with Doli. They're experienced in their ability to hit the ball.

So, yeah, I think you look at yesterday, yeah, we had some chances there, and we had the right guys up. It's not always going to happen, but does make life easier, trust me, when they're going well and getting those big hits.

Like I said, Marcus did all he could. I know we're talking about his hitting struggles. But he smoked that ball. What else can you do? If he gets by, we tie the game, got runners on first and third. We didn't have a lot of luck on that. But getting back to your point, yeah, we need those guys to put runs on the board.

Q. How do you expect the emotions from yesterday's game to maybe carry over to tomorrow?

BRUCE BOCHY: I don't see really any of this happening again, to be honest. Now, you're talking about emotions with both teams, or especially ours, yeah, you have an incident like that and then a tough loss.

But I'll say this about the club. They've been tested all year. You know that. You've been watching. I don't know how many times I've been asked, Are they being tested?

And each time they just found a way. So that's what I'm proud about with these guys. And trust me, it's a tough loss. But I can tell you today during the workout, these guys will be focused. I said this back in Seattle. We lost that last game. There were some heads down there for a while. Which is normal. But once you move past that and get back to the next day, they answer the bell.

Q. Do you feel at all like Astros' experience, particularly in the playoffs, has played any factor in this series to this point? And the other part of that is your team's relative lack of experience playing in the playoffs together?

BRUCE BOCHY: I don't agree with that. I think, well, first of all, you have to look at Houston. Second, consecutive years they've been in this situation. So, sure, that's valuable experience.

But I think for that to happen, there has to be a lot of talent on that club, which there is. So I'll go with that.

But with this club, there's been a lot of changes. We had some guys with experience. Again, the way they've been tested, I don't think there's lack of experience for us to be where we're at. We went in and won the first two. That didn't play a factor there. For some reason this ballpark has been good to Houston. I wish I had an answer for that or could explain it, whatever.

So, no, it's been a good series. That game could have gone either way. Really, it was in our favor, and we'd be up 3-2. And they came back. Give them credit there. I just think it's a good matchup, and we have two games left.

Q. The follow-up to that would just be did anything yesterday after the benches cleared, did you feel like -- to go back to my point, did you feel at all like you guys in any way got rattled?

BRUCE BOCHY: Not at all. Not one bit. I can tell you what, Jose, Josy Leclerc now, and they got the base hit, but I don't think he was rattled. Even after the home run, if he was rattled, then he would have showed it there. But he came back to get three outs.

No, I don't know who was rattled. But in the 9th there were two guys on, we had our guys up there, and like I said, we hit a ball hard. So, no, I don't see where we were rattled.