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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RED SOX v RAYS

October 16, 2008

Terry Francona

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Game Five

Q. Your first, the '04 team was very much not home-grown. I think Trot was the only guy the Red Sox drafted and developed and the rest were trades and free agents, and now you have obviously a very large contingent of home-grown guys. How is the vibe and dynamic different from one to the other, would you say?
TERRY FRANCONA: Oh, man, that's probably -- I mean the '04 group was a group of guys that will never be replicated, thank God (laughter). They were their own mold.
I shouldn't say that because I actually loved them. But it was a diverse group of guys that came together and pulled it off. Fun to be around. I don't know that that group could stay together forever, just the way they were built. But I know Theo -- and this is before I got here -- talked about building a farm system and using it, and we have. And it's helped us a ton.
Nowadays when you look at bullpens and trying to get bullpen help, and if you go out of the training deadline and you try to get a pitcher, they just kind of molest you, your organization -- that's a bad -- there ought to be a better word. But I want to take advantage of it. Clean it up.
But it's too much, and then you get a guy like Masterson, Delcarmen, and they're right there, and it's been a huge help for us.

Q. I know you have other things to worry about, but being from Philadelphia I wanted to get your impressions on, first of all, the Phillies making the World Series, what you think of them as a team.
TERRY FRANCONA: I don't need to evaluate them as a team right now. We're only going to work on Tampa. There are some people I was really happy for. You can't spend four years in a place -- whether you have success or not, and not get really close to people. I mean, I didn't watch a ton of the game. I kind of went back and forth, trying to figure out the state of our country for a while, and lost interest in that (laughter).
But I wanted to see Frank Coppenbarger, their clubhouse guy, and the camera went on him right when he was in the dugout, and that was exciting. And the other guy -- and again, you start potentially leaving out names, which is not good, but Bill Giles. I wanted to get close to people, and I was very happy for their success.

Q. A question a little bit outside the box for you. Would you be in favor if baseball could find a way to expand the first round of the playoffs from best of five to best of seven, if there were a way to do that?
TERRY FRANCONA: Probably depends where we are after five (laughter). I don't know. I mean, we're sitting here one game away from wanting this to be best out of nine (laughter). I don't know. I haven't thought about it.

Q. You've seen the Rays 23 times this year. What impresses you most about their club?
TERRY FRANCONA: That's probably hard to answer right today. If you ask how they constructed it, you could give an answer. There's certain nights when they've beaten us when something has stood out.
I've been impressed with the way they built their staff. They built their bullpen, and they have a starting staff that's young and durable, because if you don't have one or the other, you're going to get exposed. I laugh when somebody says, what would you rather have. The answer is you better have both, and they've done a very good job of that.
And they've gotten -- offensively they've gotten contributions from everybody. How many times do you turn on the TV and see somebody hitting a walk-off home run? They've got it across the board, and they've done a very good job of gaining confidence and then keeping it.
Now, our job is to derail that a little bit, and that's not an easy task because they feel very good about themselves.

Q. Were there other considerations for leadoff other than Coco? Did you think Pedroia there or anything like that, et cetera?
TERRY FRANCONA: Well, if we had hit Pedroia first, then I'm stating the obvious, you need to find somebody to hit second. Then all of a sudden we're kind of having a -- we're changing everything that I didn't think made sense.
I wanted to keep Pedey, David, Youk and Bay two through five. Again, we understand that making Kazmir work is very, very important. When we've had success against him, for the most part we've gotten him out of games and made him work, and we are very aware of that.
But we knew going into this game against him that we are very left-handed, and that's why we made -- we have Kotsay hitting down a little bit lower, because Kazmir's numbers are vastly different left versus right.

Q. Does it matter to you that Kazmir is pitching tonight instead of Shields?
TERRY FRANCONA: Does it matter to me? Joe didn't ask my opinion, if that's what you're getting at (laughter).
We've got to play Tampa, and if I'm upset that he's pitching, it's not going to -- what am I going to do, tell the guy, hey, I'm upset this kid's pitching; let's not go play?
I mean come on, you're welcome to ask any questions you want, but I don't have -- that's a tough one to answer.

Q. What was the general mood in the clubhouse when you walked in there tonight?
TERRY FRANCONA: Well, I didn't walk in there tonight. I walked in there about 10:30, so the general mood was very quiet because I was the only one there for a while, which is probably a relief.
It's fine. I think they understand where we are, and I think we also understand the way that we can get this done, and that's by basically three things: Pay attention to detail, you handle frustration, and you stay in the moment. Those are the three things we talked about all year long, and that will be the best way to handle where we are now.

Q. There was a report in SI.com that Beckett tore his oblique in the final start of the year and he's been pitching with it ever since. Just a comment on that.
TERRY FRANCONA: Oh, man. I don't know how that came about. That's another one that's hard to answer because it didn't happen. When I say "you people," that's not fair. When the media chooses to be not completely professional, we get put in a tough position.
I don't know how to -- other than that, I don't know how to answer it. It's not true, so that's about the best I can do.

Q. You talked about Bill Giles and you were happy for him. Could you talk about that? You worked for him those years, and what that was like being with him?
TERRY FRANCONA: He's one of the dearest people that I've ever come across. He wants everybody that works for him to do well, try their best -- I mean, I can remember him, he stood out on the Clearwater field before the first home Grapefruit League game every year, and he proclaims that this is going to be the year, and he believes it in his heart, and now I'm happy for him that now it's come true.

End of FastScripts

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