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AL DIVISION SERIES: RAYS v RED SOXOctober 8, 2013Joe MaddonTAMPA, FLORIDA: Game Four Boston – 3 Q. Was it your plan tonight to use your pitching in the way you used it? And just as a quick follow‑up, was Price going in in the 10th if there was a 10th and what did that mean for game 5? JOE MADDON: Yeah, he was going to go into the 10th. The plan was that Hellie would have gone longer than just three outs. And then after that we were going to piece it together based on their lineup. Not necessarily according to plan. But originally I thought or had hoped for Hellie getting through the lineup one time and maybe through Pedroia and then turning it over at that point. The way it was working at the beginning there, I could see it was just not going to work and we had to do something differently. We became a little bit more extemporaneous at that point. I did not plan on David either. Fernando was struggling so much in the 9th there, and I didn't want them to get anymore runs because of Uehara. Stayed with him as long as I could and then here came Archie. We could have walked Papi and pitched to Napoli with the bases loaded. Again, putting that kind of pressure on a young pitcher, I didn't want to do that to him. And Wesley could have put the ball on the ground, which he did. Throughout the entire game, it was an interesting game. Again, we needed to score more runs against their pitching, we've had a hard time with that, but I thought our bullpen was fabulous. Q. What would you have done in Game 5? JOE MADDON: It would have looked a lot like Game4. Without winning a Game4 there is no Game 5. So you just would piece it together after that in a similar fashion. We did the same thing earlier against Oakland, where the bullpen did a nice job. If you have a sturdy bullpen, which we do, there would have been a day off, so I thought by game time Thursday we would have been fine by then. Q. Can you talk about how the Red Sox played the series? JOE MADDON: They were really good. They didn't make any mistakes. You could see their grit. I talked about from Spring Training on, I think they've really promoted the character within that group, and they're just gamers, they've got a bunch of gamers over there. And that's what really I felt from the other side. On the other side I think our guys were equally as tough. We have had a hard time hitting their pitching staff. Q. This might have been what you were just talking about. You said yesterday that they present differently than they have in the past, what do you mean? JOE MADDON: Again, when you look at their lineup, and look at the very top, Ellsbury as well. Victorino really adds a different dimension to that group, and you saw that again tonight. He just drips with intangibles. That's just who he is. Papi as well. Pedroia, like I said, is pretty much the heart and soul of that entire group. Napoli, I proclaim the year of the Napoli a couple of years ago. I've always felt that way about him. Jonny Gomes, the same thing. You put in Ross as a backup catcher. You can see what he does, being able to garner some strikes in the latter part of the game. They have all that stuff going on. They have a wonderful bullpen. They're just good, man. They're good. They're the reason we're sitting here not winning right now. They beat us all season. They beat us in a 5‑game series. I've got to give them credit. I should take this moment to say I want to give them a lot of credit, John and the entire Red Sox organization what they've done this year. Based on the difficulties they faced last year. Obviously they made some wonderful decisions and they deserve to advance. I commend them. Q. Can you put into words your thoughts on your season coming to an end? JOE MADDON: Again, with 90‑plus games it's been a pretty good year. Regardless of what anyone else might want to think. You're always going to talk about the different levels of success. And what is ultimate success, probably winning the World Series. But I also think there's different levels of success. And maybe more important things like making sure that your children, when they grow up they're happy. There's different ways to look at this whole thing. From my perspective, I'm really proud of our group. I just talked to them briefly about that. I don't want to be a cliché, but there's nothing to hang our heads about. There really isn't. A great battle all season. We were kind an up and down kind of a team. We hit some really good moments and some really bad moments, but at the end of the day you still win 92 games, that's pretty good. Retrospectively, we didn't get where we wanted to get, but cannot be more proud or pleased with our group. Q. For as much trouble as you guys were in the early innings, with all the machinations, you were maybe a wild pitch away from pulling this off. Were you thinking that? JOE MADDON: It was there. It was all there. And I think the real ‑‑ the tipping point might have been the walk to Bogaerts. And they had not pinch‑hit for Drew at all. And they throw him up, he had a 1‑2 count, we walk him. And that's pretty much how that whole thing began to roll. And then the wild pitch, like you suggested, which is true. That's what put it in their favor. I thought it was in our abilities. Q. Just wanted to go back to the pitching tonight. Did Hellie know that was the game plan? JOE MADDON: No, I didn't want to put anything in his head. If he got off really good and stayed good, I would have let him go on farther. But I really thought looking at it, just try the game plan. One time through plus through Pedroia, I thought that would be 12 batters, then here comes Ortiz, who has given them some problems. I thought at that point it would have been good to get back to Alex Torres, that was the game plan. But that got blown up. Jamey got out of a jam. I thought Moore did a nice job. But I thought there might have been fatigue, even though it was 30 pitches. But the rest, Alex, I thought he could do 2 innings, et cetera. It really came down to the one walk that hurt us. Although we did walk several people tonight. Q. Over the four games, if my math is right, you only scored nine runs. Looking back, is there anything in particular that you would want to do differently in this series? JOE MADDON: Score more runs. That would be the first thing I'd like to do. No, I mean we've ‑‑ you watch us all year, the machinations regarding how we do things, and the fact that this is a really tough team for us to hit against. You can look at it all season long. They've beaten us and primarily because we've lost a lot of close games where they've won, we can't match up with their pitching. They've done a great job. They've got some really good veterans. Peavy was outstanding, he was only 70‑some pitches when they took him out. That's been the downfall this year, the fact that we cannot hit that group. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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