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AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v ANGELS

September 30, 2008

Jason Varitek

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Workout Day

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jason.

Q. How has the personality of your team changed since July 30th? I think it's obvious how it's changed on the field but in the clubhouse do you think you've had more success?
JASON VARITEK: How has your personality changed? I don't think it's that so much as this team just had direction. In my opinion, it comes down to it that at that point the decision was going to be made either way.
People need to understand, Manny wasn't hurtful in our clubhouse as much as it was a situation that needed to come to an end and I think it was going to either way. At the end of that trade deadline. Personality has been good. We have the same core group of people. We've added a few that are good baseball players and good teammates.

Q. I wanted to know how much satisfaction or fun it is to bring along a young pitcher like a Lester or Jonathan Papelbon over the years and kinda talk to them about being -- you know, the in's and out's of the game and early in your career who were the guys that helped you the most in learning the pitcher versus hitter games that you've been pretty good at analyzing later in your career?
JASON VARITEK: Part one, with having -- the last few years probably the last three or four years we've been able to add more development into our pitching along with the rest of our team, so that's been a change. I've learned personally -- and you know, that's just fun, it's fun to talk about the game and pass on what I have learned through the experience of maybe likeness of other pitchers, that have similar stuff or in some cases don't have the same -- close to the same stuff at all. Try and pass on those things and work it different -- work at different steps to help put them in situations to succeed rather than throwing the whole kit and caboodle at 'em at once. I think you learn from -- I've learned from every manager or pitching coach that I've had and a lot of pitchers, I learned a lot from Pedro, from Saberhagen, and John Burkett and it keeps going because it adds to your knowledge base that at maybe another point in time to help that.
Pitching coaches from Kerrigan to Dave Wallace to now John Farrell, we've had the luxury of having some really good people and some knowledgeable people and John has done a phenomenal job of communicating between the pitching staff and myself and Kevin Cash and David Ross, and it keeps that open door of communication and it gets transferred from catcher to pitching coach to pitcher or from pitcher to pitching coach to catcher, or directly to the catcher, which helps the whole process.

Q. Jason, how much does it help the psychology of a team when you have a guy at the back end like Jonathan Papelbon? We've seen teams fighting to keep the win at the end and when he comes in there seems to be a sense of finality.
JASON VARITEK: Absolutely. I've been here when we haven't had that and that's left a big question mark. So it left a question mark of A, who gets the ball and B, whose role is everybody going to fall into and I think it was big for this organization that we came back to that in spring training when we were falling into that of who is going to be the closer and it turned back to Pap and the bullpen relaxes, they start to figure out what their roles are and everybody adds in between to get a means to an end in Pap.

Q. Can you talk about the Angels' aggressiveness and can you talk about the development of Jon Lester over the last year and a half?
JASON VARITEK: The Angels are aggressive, it's no surprise to anybody. A lot like Tampa, a lot in the same way, even more aggressive on this end with Anaheim. It's something we've seen and we have to be prepared for it and stay within ourselves and keep playing our game.
With Lester, Lester has gone through so much as a human being first, along with having to develop as a professional athlete and a professional pitcher and, you add those things, he keeps gaining experience and keeps learning himself, most importantly and I think that's the big key. Through his development he's figuring out who Jon Lester is rather than the performance dictating who he is.

Q. John asked you about their aggressiveness, I wanted to take that farther. We know they have a stronger thump this year with Hunter and Mark Teixeira. They are different, but over the years you've played them, are they markedly more different than anybody else and you as a catcher, how did that affect the way you called the game or saw the game or, you know, everything about playing against them, is it that different than playing against everybody else?
JASON VARITEK: I don't know if it's different, you just have to make sure you're aware of it because they'll send Mark Teixeira on contact at third. They'll look to take the extra base, they have to be controlled in the outfield and we have to be controlled in the infield and we have to be controlled with our pitching staff.
Awareness and the ability to slow down the game, I think that's a big key. You know, they do have a little more thump in their lineup than what they have had but they still play the same game.

Q. It's been a long time now, but the trade with the Mariners that brought you and Derek Lowe over was one of the more celebrated in history. What you remember when you got to Boston, what type of opportunity did you think that was or what you projected about what that trade was going to mean to you?
JASON VARITEK: At the time I had no idea what the trade was going to mean for me. Things had just a little bit started to fall together with me defensively. I had a lot of struggles, a little bit offensively, started coming together, made the trade, come over here and I struggled. I ended up getting called up, and I think it was big for me going into spring training that I had a manager that saw me as a baseball player. He made it a point to come to me one day and go "son, you're a baseball player and you're going to be a baseball player, and a good one."
He instilled the confidence in me and I had a good spring and was going to be the third catcher and ended up playing against lefties and then a year later, unfortunately for Scott, he got hurt, had to play every day and been very fortunate since.

Q. What's going to be key in getting after John Lackey?
JASON VARITEK: We haven't quite gone over our hitter's meeting yet, which we will do this afternoon. Lackey can pitch, he can both slow you down with his breaking stuff and speed you up with the location of his fastball. Keep him down in the zone or make him get up his breaking ball.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Jason.

End of FastScripts

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