AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RED SOX v YANKEES

October 12, 2004

Terry Francona

TERRY FRANCONA: He just didn't look right. We were trying to give him every opportunity because his heart's so big and he has the ability to reach back, and we talked when he came out. I don't think he was hurting; he just wasn't right, wasn't driving, and we'll talk later. We had a game to get through and try to win, but he just didn't look right. He didn't complain about any pain or anything like that.

TERRY FRANCONA: Again, the object is to win. We actually gave it a pretty good run and Dave Ortiz's ball a couple of feet from tying the game and we get Timlin in the game and get him matched up against the guys we want to and Bernie ends up hitting a pitch for a double that ends up hurting us. Any time you get down that far and you can get the tying run to the plate with the hitters that we have, we have a chance.

TERRY FRANCONA: I tell you what, during the first six innings, he kind of put on a clinic. He was throwing different speeds, different pitches, up, down nothing was over the middle of the plate. Everything was on the black. With a six-run lead he was very, very tough. And obviously we didn't do anything. He was efficient, he didn't change speeds and didn't throw anything over the middle.

TERRY FRANCONA: You're getting way, way ahead of me. We're going to have Derek at the end actually so we can kind of mix-and-match. As long as we have Derek back there, we thought we could mix-and-match lefty, righty, whoever we wanted to. We were going to go with wake another inning, we scored the five and it seemed like a right time to bring in Embree. As long as Derek is behind those guys, we can kind of go with what we want.

TERRY FRANCONA: The vibe in the dugout was actually pretty good even when we were down which is not surprising. They will play. I mean, even when we got down 6-0, 8-0, they just kept saying we'll peck away. We have good hitters, and we did. We really were not down at any time. We thought we could come back.

TERRY FRANCONA: I don't think so. It's way too early. You're getting so far ahead. We played one game. I think I kind of explained it, how I explained it.