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AL DIVISION SERIES: TIGERS v ATHLETICSOctober 8, 2013Josh ReddickDETROIT, MICHIGAN: Game Four THE MODERATOR: Oakland A's Reddick. Questions. Q. Josh, you guys seem to have struck a nice balance between your love of swinging from the heels and also working counts and getting deep in counts. Is that something that Chili Davis has sort of preached with you? JOSH REDDICK: We're a team that strikes out a lot, but we have the ability to hit the long ball quite a bit. It's not like Chili talks about battling pitches, it's more about sticking to your routine and the way we approach things. It seems to work out with a lot of swings and misses and hitting the long ball. We stick to that and as long as we work on our routines, everything works out fine for us. Q. Torii Hunter said the pressure is all on you guys? What would it mean to you guys to knock these guys off, the team that knocked you guys off last year? JOSH REDDICK: It's kind of tough to say the pressure is on us when we're ahead, but we're not going to be in there cocky type goin in thinking we're going to run all over these guys, because they are a tough team. Fister's no easy challenge, but we have all the confidence in the world after beating Anibal Sanchez and we feel like we can come in here and do a good job of battling against these guys. It's a tough task, especially with these guys that we have, but we have the team with the momentum in our favor and their team with the backs against the wall. Q. Josh, during the season, the entire outfield numbers are down this series. Seems like the outfield is really producing. How much pride do you take in that, that here when it matters, the unit is offensively doing things that you weren't necessarily doing all year? JOSH REDDICK: I think it's huge. It all starts with Coco. Coco has been our main catalyst in that spot all year. When he gets going, we get going. And if he gets on, we seem to find ways to drive him in. JD and Jed, those guys have been our main run producers. When you get guys like Brandon Moss and Yoenis Cespedes swinging the bat well, we can live and die with those guys, especially with Yoenis Cespedes, who can hit for a high average and hit ball out of the ballpark as well. Me and Moss talk about it all the time. Moss tries to hit home runs every at‑bat, he has no problem with that, because when he is trying to hit singles, he still is going to strike out, so he might as well have fun out there and try to hit one out of the ballpark. And for guys like Yoenis Cespedes, he may be trying to hit one every time and we can see when he's definitely trying, but we feel like when Coco gets on, we have a great chance of winning. Q. Talk about your approach to Doug Fister today. JOSH REDDICK: Guy with sinking fastballs, he knows how to mix it up well with his change‑up, and throws a curveball to lefties a lot. We know he not afraid to attack lefties and tries to keep us off balance. We just gotta work with our approach, doing what we have done all series, try to get him deep in the counts and get him out of there early in the ballgame. Once we get to their bullpen, we feel like we have a chance. For a guy who throws a lot of sinking fastballs, we got to get down early and be ready to drive the ball. Q. Seems like you guys have gone through a lot of roster changes in the past two, three years and yet maintained a really strong chemistry and bond. How do you account for that? JOSH REDDICK: I think it all starts in the clubhouse. We seem to be a team that doesn't have a lot of veteran leadership, so a lot of young guys aren't stuck at their lockers being quiet like a lot of other teams where you see that happening. For me at Boston, it was like that. Rookies don't say a lot. But everybody here let's their emotions run high and that's something that's work for us the last two years. So we feel like it's something we're not going to change. It's out of the normal, but it seems to work for us, so we're not going to switch it up. Q. Josh, the other day in Game2, did you bunt on your own or was that called? Either way, how comfortable are you doing that in a situation? JOSH REDDICK: That was a given sacrifice bunt sign, that was not me on my own. I had a 95% feeling that I was going to get that call. I'm 100% confident in myself, I feel like I should get the bunt down every time. Even though I don't do it a whole lot, I take great pride in being a great bunter and I have to get it down in that situation, especially with Justin Verlander on the mound. I have no doubt in my mind I can get a bunt down. Q. The game ending yesterday with V‑Mart and Balfour, from your experience of the game, was that an isolated incident or will we see carryover? JOSH REDDICK: I don't think we'll see carryover. We've all seen Balfour when he pitches, he's yelling at baseballs, blades of grass, the mound, who knows what's going on (chuckles). But I think it's heat of the moment, and Victor took it the wrong way. And Balfour doesn't like to get stared down and he pretty much wins the staring contest 100% of the time, and he didn't appreciate it. But I don't see it carrying over when a team is on the verge of elimination. I highly doubt they're going to hit somebody to put him on, and I highly doubt that's going to happen. I know we're not going to do that to give them a chance to come back. Q. When Balfour is carrying on like that, how often do you hear him clearly? JOSH REDDICK: Early in the year in Oakland when we don't really have a very large fan base and you can hear it coming in from the bullpen. For me in right field, I don't hear it a lot. The only thing I hear is when he's coming in if he's coming in from the dugout, words can't be repeated in the media and he does it by saying vulgar words. You got to tip your cap to him because that's how he gets in the zone to pitch. You don't want to take that away from him because that's what he's done successfully for his whole career. Q. Just one more on Balfour. You talk about how he gets ready and the curse words. Do you guys as a team laugh about it or mimic him? How does that work? It's got to be funny, right? JOSH REDDICK: When I first experienced it, it was actually in Japan, I didn't know what was going on. I turned around and thought somebody was yelling at me, so I didn't know how to take it. But you don't laugh at it because if he's in the game, it's a tight situation where you're about to win, so you feed off of it. At home, when he comes out and his music comes on, it gets you fired up, makes you want to go out there and make a big play, get my focus zoned in for myself. I think a lot of us feed off that. When the inning is about to start and Josh Donaldson has the ball from the throw‑down, he's got to have it thrown to Balfour. We saw it yesterday, where it was a short hopped and he still threw it down. And he held it down and still made Norris throw it to Donaldson and not to Balfour because he's got to have that routine of getting the ball. 18 customers later he's zoned in and remembers that (Laughter.) Q. Josh, do you think your team's outfield defense is as good as anybody's and how important is that in this series, particularly with the big ballparks? JOSH REDDICK: I think we're one of the best in the game with Coco leading the challenge out there in center field. I never have to worry about where he's at. He knows where I am, and most of the time we don't have to call for a baseball. Yesterday, we saw Miguel Cabrera hit the ball to deep right and I know I could have caught it, but he was playing over there that way and the only thing I need to get over there for was to let him know whether Torii Hunter was tagging up or not. It's amazing how Yoenis Cespedes was able to convert to left field, and it's not the place where he wanted to be. The first month was rough and he learned from that as quickly as he did from the plate, and we're all on the same page. The only thing we could ask for maybe is if Coco had a better arm minus the screws in his shoulder. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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