AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v ANGELS

October 6, 2004

Terry Francona

TERRY FRANCONA: I told you, we were thrilled. I don't care who pitches for us. You know, we need good outings. I thought he competed his heart out. There is a lot of things -- he is a great pitcher and he did some things really, really well tonight; he had to. But on top of everything else, he really, really competed.

TERRY FRANCONA: Like I said, I told you so. It's easier after the game. Regardless of what would have happened tonight, or what would have transpired, you got to believe me when I tell you the furthest thing from my mind was worrying about Pedro Martinez.

TERRY FRANCONA: Again, I thought command with Pedro is the biggest thing. And it seemed to me like tonight when he missed, he wasn't missing by a lot. He wasn't missing over the middle of the plate. And we put him in a little bit of a hole with a pop-up. When we catch a break on the line out to Millar, double-play. He fields his positions on the bunt, though, which helps us out. I thought a big inning was -- because we had really worked Colon well the first couple innings. Then he had a pretty quick third inning and Pedro had worked real hard and went back out and had a nice clean inning, and I thought that was huge for us.

TERRY FRANCONA: You know what? It is. I mean, regardless -- we showed up today to win, but you know they feel good when they get to their bullpen, like we do. And again, we did some damage and we -- not only did we get the lead, but we tacked on a little bit, and somewhere down the road, that may help us. You guys asked me the same thing about Ramirez in New York. This bullpen has been somewhat invincible and we scored some runs tonight. That's huge.

TERRY FRANCONA: I thought that's what you said. His command tonight was very, very good. His command the last few outings weren't as good as tonight. He was over the middle of the plate, which makes a big game, he is a big-game pitcher, but when he is commanding, because he has four different pitches, he can change speeds, he can elevate, there is a lot of different ways for him to get people out. I thought he used them all tonight very efficiently, very effectively.

TERRY FRANCONA: I just mean on the mound. There were some situations where at any point in the game, if something doesn't go our way, we could lose that game. You saw what I saw. He is competing his heart out. He gave everything he had to do what he did.