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MLB WORLD SERIES: DODGERS VS RED SOX

October 26, 2018

Alex Cora

Boston, Massachusetts - postgame 2

Red Sox - 2 Dodgers - 3

Q. Three quick ones: Pitcher tomorrow? And do you, in hindsight, wish that you had left Porcello a little longer and J.D. Martinez in a little longer?
ALEX CORA: Not at all. The game will dictate the way we move our pieces and our players and it was a 3-2 game. So we had first and third when we ran for J.D., we put a hit-and-run on, and we had man on first and third. With J.D. we can't do that.

With Porcello. We felt it was a bad matchup for us. We went to Eddie, and we knew we had Nate tonight. And it was a great game.

Q. Pitcher for tomorrow?
ALEX CORA: How do you spell that, "TBA"? TBA.

Q. What was your view of the Kinsler play, and do you think he should have held onto that ball?
ALEX CORA: I don't know, I haven't talked to him. It seemed like he was a little off balance when he caught it. He's one of the best defensive second basemen in the Big Leagues. He's been making that play for a while and just threw it away.

Q. Could you just talk about Eduardo Nunez's night.
ALEX CORA: He was all over the place, huh?

Q. Have you ever seen anything like that? Normally with what happened to him, he'd be out of a game like that.
ALEX CORA: Well, actually after the dirt ball, when the catcher ran over him, he felt he was in bad shape. But like I told him, he's like, "I'm not coming out." I said, "Well, you can't come out. We have no more players."

But a good effort. It sucks because he's at first, Sandy hit the double down the line, can't score, and the fly ball, he can't slow down, so he goes into the seats. So it was a tough one for him but he gave us a great effort. He actually played a good game. He was limping all over the place and at the end he can't slow down, one, he can't score from first.

Actually I thought that Christian's bunt was a good one, and I know Maeda made a nice play, but if he's okay, he gets to third.

It is what it is. There's a lot of guys a little banged up, but they grind it out. This is what I signed in for, that effort, from pitch one all the way to the end. Sign me in, it's cool.

Q. Losing a World Series game is tough, losing one in 18 innings is tougher, but when you go all in, as you like to say here, and use Nate for as long as you did, how crushing a loss is this, given the swing that was at stake there and you're three outs from the 13th from being successful?
ALEX CORA: Not at all. There's no question at all. I just talked to him. I told him how proud I was of him. The effort was amazing. It was a great baseball game. Seven hours, whatever it is. People back home are probably waking up to the end. But it's probably one of the best, if not the best, game I've ever been a part of. The effort from both sides.

What Nate did tonight, that was amazing. That was amazing. We kept talking to him, "I'm good. I'm good. I'm good."

We'll map it out tomorrow. There are a few guys that are lining up in my office to start the game tomorrow. We'll decide what we'll do and we'll be fine.

Q. I was going to ask about Nathan, how much longer could you have gone with him?
ALEX CORA: That was the last inning right there. When he came in, I asked him, "How do you feel?" He's like, "Let me finish it." And I'm like, "okay." I don't know if I told him, "You've got one more." Drew was up already. Actually Drew was going to hit at the top of the next inning, whatever it was. So his stuff was still good. The last out, Turner, that was good. And then Muncy put a good swing on it, and hit it out of the ballpark.

Q. Is he surprising you at all now? That's pretty unusual to keep his velocity and movement.
ALEX CORA: He's putting everything together. The pitch mix, good breaking balls, good cutters, good fastballs, you almost have to be perfect in that situation. And actually he was perfect. We just didn't make one play and they put a good swing on it. But effort-wise, I don't know, World Series, that was one of the best performances probably in the history of the World Series.

Q. What was your impression of Walker Buehler? And what did he show you different from what you've seen from other pitchers this year?
ALEX CORA: His stuff is amazing. He made adjustments. We were putting good at-bats early on. He was throwing the four-seamer, and all of a sudden he started throwing cutters and changeups, and he was able to keep us off balance. For him to go seven at this stage, they needed it and he did an outstanding job.

Q. You say guys were lining up outside your office to pitch tomorrow, I wonder what the chances of Sale being part of the mix?
ALEX CORA: He talked about it actually before the game. We'll sit down now and we'll go over it, and we'll decide. Somebody will start. Most likely a lefty (laughter).

Q. How tough was the balancing act, obviously trying to win the game tonight, thinking about the rest of the series, with bringing in Nate in a tie game?
ALEX CORA: When he went up twice, we were talking about it, we were like, well, we've got David. We knew we were going to be okay with him. We had Craig, obviously knowing that Nate was going to be available. And he got up a few times and that's when I decided, well, if he warmed up twice, we should just let him go, because he's not going to start tomorrow. And we just kept going.

His stuff was great. At the end it was like a regular start for him. We'll see where he is at in the next few days and see where we're going to lose use him.

Q. Did you see anything with them, the way they were being pitched?
ALEX CORA: It was just a bad night. We had some situations that we could have put them away and then we didn't. And at the end we paid the price.

Q. How much can a game like this, a night like this, where so many guys get beat up, an over-seven-hour game, every single pitcher used except for Drew, how much can that carry over it for tomorrow?
ALEX CORA: We'll find out tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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