Red Sox sign De Jesus, D. Carpenter, Rosario
Shortly before Thanksgiving, the Red Sox had to get their 40-man roster in order ahead of the Rule 5 Draft. A few of the players they designated for assignment already had deals with the team for 2013.
Infielder Ivan De Jesus, right-hander David Carpenter (who came over along with manager John Farrell in the swap with Toronto) and right-hander Sandy Rosario had all re-upped with the Red Sox on Minor League deals. So too has righty Jose De La Torre, who was not DFA’d.
As WEEI.com reported Monday, whether Carpenter and Rosario pass through waivers — and remain with the Sox — is still to be seen. De Jesus has passed through waivers and was outrighted.
De Jesus, who turns 26 in May, went hitless in eight plate appearances and eight games with the Sox in 2012. He’s had just 80 plate appearances in the Majors total between this year and last with the Dodgers and Sox, hitting .205. A former second-round Draft pick, he’s done much better at Triple-A, where he has a .303/.355/.416 line lifetime.
Carpenter, 27, is 1-5 in 60 innings and 67 appearances in the Majors — with all but three of those outings coming with the Astros. Houston sent him to Toronto in an earlier trade in 2012. Carpenter has shown strikeout stuff with 60 Ks in as many big-league innings and 215 Ks in 202 1/3 innings in the Minors. His career ERA in 45 1/3 innings at Triple-A is 1.79.
Rosario, 27, has 10 games and 7 2/3 innings in the Majors between the last three seasons, all with the Marlins. The Red Sox claimed him off waivers in October. Rosario has a lifetime 3.15 ERA in the Minors and a 1.65 ERA in 32 2/3 innings at Triple-A. He was a closer in the Marlins system.
De La Torre has a Minor League deal with an invite to big league camp. The 27-year-old had a 2.45 ERA at Triple-A Pawtucket and has a 9.3 K/9 in the Minors lifetime. He came over to the Sox from Cleveland for outfielder Brent Lillibridge.
If in the Majors, all four would make in the range of $490,000 to $506,000 pro-rated.
– Evan Drellich
Red Sox in contact with Bay
The Red Sox are in the market for at least one starting outfielder, if not two, and a familiar name is out there. Jason Bay was a popular run producer during the year-and-a-half he played in Boston, but then went to the Mets, where he has had three horrific, injury-plagued seasons. Some thought that Bay was a bad fit for the Mets right from the outset. Could coming back to Boston resurrect his career?
It is at least a possibility. ESPN’s Buster Olney tweeted the following: “The Red Sox are among the teams in contact with Jason Bay, as he considers his options for 2013. Looking for opportunity, familiarity.”
Fenway’s friendly dimensions in left field are a far better fit for Bay’s swing than CitiField ever was.
The Red Sox’s interest in Bay could depend on how things go with Cody Ross, who was a positive presence on the field and in the clubhosue for Boston in 2012. Ross is a free agent and said to be seeking a three-year deal. The Braves are among the teams who have shown early interest.
Angel Sanchez signs with Angels
In the Majors with the Red Sox for one game in 2010, infielder Angel Sanchez has signed a Minor League deal with the Angels, a baseball source said. That includes an invite to big league camp.
Sanchez, 29, hit .320 in 107 games for Triple-A Oklahoma (Astros) last season. He’s a lifetime .255 hitter in the Majors (628 plate appearances).
– Evan Drellich
Farrell officialy on board; Toronto GM weighs in
The Red Sox will likely wait until the conclusion of the National League Championship Series — Game 7 is Monday night — to have their formal press conference to unveil John Farrell as the team’s next manager.
Up in Toronto, Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos weighed in on the situation in a conference call on Sunday afternoon. Here is a sampling.
How the whole situation opened up for Farrell to be allowed to consider the Boston job. “I’m not sure if it was a Sunday or Monday, we were off on Monday (October 8), I spoke to John, starting going through offseason plans and so on, and that was the first time we talked about the Boston circumstances, the rumors and everything else. That was the first time we sat down all season even and addressed it and even spoke about it. John expressed to me that he’d really like an opportunity to pursue that if it came about. I explained to him that at that time, we hadn’t gotten any phone call at all, and that obviously we couldn’t hold up our offseason and even go down that path if we hadn’t gotten a phone call and we couldn’t wait forever.
“We ultimately agreed that we’d give it a few more days and see if there was going to be a phone call in the next few days. If we did not, then we were going to move forward. And if there was a call, then we were going to see if we could get something done. This was, as John explained it to me, a dream job for him, an opportunity he really wanted to pursue. So we felt if there was a deal that made sense for our club as well, we were going to try to go ahead and complete that. So we never really got that far [as an extension]. That’s really the chain of events.
“And then after, I guess, our conversation, I’m not sure if it was a day later or two days later, John Henry, one of the owners of the Boston Red Sox, reached out to our CEO Paul Beeston, to express interest in working out a trade. I don’t know how long it’s been — maybe eight or nine, 10 days, or whatever it’s been from that time, and here we are today. It finally got done.”
You said at the end of the season you were certain Farrell would be your manager in 2013. What changed? “My focus was completely on the roster. We have a lot of work to do on the roster, starting rotation — that’s where it needed to be. It was 100 percent John was going to be manager for 2013. We were going to continue to discuss things like we always do — finalize staff, finalize roster, talk about offseason needs, things like that. But ultimately, when we finally discussed the Boston scenario, the fact that it was a distraction that came up, I told him we hadn’t even received a phone call at that point. He told me he’d really like to pursue it and it was something he really wanted. Ultimately, we both agreed though, that we couldn’t wait on forever. If there wasn’t any movement within a few days, then we needed to put it to bed and move forward. John was on board with that and I was on board with that. We had already started to discuss staff, players, roster. We’d already started to talk about some of those things geared towards 2013.
What was the process like? “I don’t know that I’d characterize it one way or the other. For me, with this whole process, what’s more disappointing to me is that there’s so much false information put out there, whether it’s, I read something the other day that supposedly John asked to release Omar Vizquel in July. One hundred percent false. Not one ounce of truth to it. There was all kinds of other things.
“I thought there was, to be completely candid, gamesmanship and a lot of things that went on from a negotiating standpoint, not on our end. But I thought there were a lot of things that were coming out that were completely false. You guys all know, we’re pretty good at not putting things out there in the media, or leaking things, or saying things. There was just a lot, the upsetting part for me is how many false reports were out there, that I just didn’t think were fair to John or to myself or to the organization entirely. From that standpoint, it was a story that was not going away. But we can’t do anything to control that. That’s the game we’re in. It’s going to happen with players. It doesn’t usually happen with managers, but it was just a unique timing of events, with Terry Francona being let go the year after the hiring of John. I don’t think anyone expected that. Again, this is something that John wanted. From that standpoint, once he told us that he wanted it and this was something that he wanted to pursue, at that point, it made sense for us to at least look into it with no guarantees and no assurances. If we could do something that made sense, it didn’t make sense for us to hold him back if we couldn’t work something out.
“Paul Beeston has various longstanding relationships with the ownership group there and Larry Lucchino, he’s got a very strong relationship there. So I think at times there were some things, I mentioned some of them, we don’t know where it came from or how it started, but probably didn’t go as smoothly as we think it could have. That’s just reality. We want to apologize, myself and Paul, on behalf of the ballclub, the fact that this even leaked last night. This was not a done deal last night, in the sense that John was finalizing his deal — I think he finalized that last night — but we had not finalized the medical examinations on the players, which got done today, and we did not get approval from the Commissioner until today to even go forward with this. We weren’t even pleased with the way it came out last night. Who knows? When more than one person knows what’s going on, you don’t know where these things are coming from. But from our standpoint, we wanted to apologize to our media, the fact that it did come out the way that it did. That was not our intent and that was not supposed to be done that way. It was supposed to be done collectively today. “
Could you have had Farrell back with just one year left on his contract? “We could have. We talked about it. He was prepared to do so as well. One thing, he was honest. He didn’t lie. I think that’s one thing you have to respect him for. I certainly do. He’s always been that way. You’ll always get the truth out of John. You won’t get a lie. From that standpoint, obviously, my responsibility is to the ballclub. But I also understand. I understand the connections. I understand the ties. John has been there a long time. There’s a lot of strong relationships there.
“I understand , it’s not completely foreign to me why there’s an appeal there and why there would be a desire on his part, that this was the one job. That’s how he expressed it to me: This is the one job. There was no other city for him that was more of a perfect fit and a perfect opportunity.
But, again, he was very candid and we talked about it, but we were prepared to move forward at that point. It was not going to drag on. If we didn’t hear anything or there’d been no phone call within the next few days, that was it. it was done. We were moving forward. We’d even gotten pretty in depth about some things that we were going to do. So, we were fully prepared to move forward, 100 percent. But we got the phone call. From there, it developed over the last nine days or so.
On David Carpenter coming back to the Red Sox as compensation, “David Carpenter, at the time, we thought he had a good arm. Obviously he wasn’t the centerpiece of the deal. He was someone that we added late at the end. But the primary pieces of the deal were Happ and Lyon, and again, Carpenter was a guy that we were able to get put on late. He wasn’t the main part of that deal. But ultimately, in looking at our 40-man roster, David, unfortunately, was going to have to come off the 40-man just with the spot because even now, we’re pretty full. With getting Mike Aviles back, we’re adding a 40-man roster player. So David was going to come off the roster. He was going to be available to any team for $20,000 either way. From a procedural standpoint and a transactional standpoint, there needed to be some type of player going back in this transaction. Ultimately, for us, if there was a player who was going to come off the roster and be available to the other 29 teams for $20,000, it made sense to put him in the deal.”
How the Red Sox tried to hire Farrell last year. “I probably don’t even want to go down the path of last year. There’s enough that’s gone on this offseason with this transaction. I’m not looking to add more to this story or another dynamic. Obviously, it’s been a story that started last year, it died, and then it continued I guess in the month of August. Today, I prefer to talk about what did occur and what happened. That’s what happened this past offseason. I’d probably rather just leave it at that.
“John, he gave everything he had. He worked incredibly hard from start to finish. He never let up. His focus always remained on the job. There’s no question, you prefer that something like this does not happen. …
On Mike Aviles coming to the Jays for Farrell. “No doubt, everyone is looking at on-base pecentage. It’s very hard to get middle infielders who can play shortstop for a lot of at-bats and get a good on-base percentage guy. Those are normally superstar players. I think if we were getting a left fielder with a low on-base percentage or a first baseman with a low on-base percentage, and with the fact that he can play middle infield, if you look at the free-agent market right now with respect to shortstop, second base, it’s just so thin. The fact that Mike does have control past this year. He is a hard-nosed player. He is a gamer. He’s not without his flaws, if you look at the on-base and so on, but he is a high-energy player. He has some power. The fact that he can play the middle infield, which is so hard to find in today’s game and is becoming harder and harder to find — we just saw a big trade with Oakland trading a shortstop over to Arizona for their center fielder, who was an All-Star a few years ago, the currency that shortstops bring, it’s such a hard commodity to find. You’d love to get the ideal .360-.400 on-base percentage guy, but finding those guys at shortstop, it’s very, very hard to do.”
Lucchino, Cherington talk Valentine and his replacement as Red Sox manager
Red Sox president Larry Lucchino and general manager Ben Cherington sat down with media outlets individually Thursday at Fenway Park instead of holding a traditional press conference following manager Bobby Valentine’s firing. Here’s what they told MLB.com.
Would an earlier firing have made a difference?
Larry Lucchino: “Not very much. Our view was that, it’s been pretty consistent, we were going to wait until the end of the season to make any kind of changes or to do any kind of thorough diagnosis. We talked from time to time, but the plan has always been to complete the season.”
Could have changed the way the season was going?
Ben Cherington: “We were trying to diagnose what was going on with the team and looking at a lot of different things. As Larry said, we never really considered changing the manager at that point. We were looking at a lot of different thigns that weren’t going as well as they needed to. There was never any focus on changing the manager at that point.”
How much did communication issues play in?
LL: “We’re not going to get into specific topics or issues or diagnosis of problems. On balance, the record speaks for itself. There are numerous factors that contributed to it and by no means does the blame for this season fall on or exclusively on Bobby Valentine, on him or exclusively on him. We all share some full measure of accountability for the dismal year we presented. I will mention that in the first 10 years we were here under this John Henry and Tom Werner ownership, we have averaged over 92 wins a year for 10 years and none of us is smart enough of skillful enough to keep that going indefinitely. This is an ebb and flow, cyclical kind of business. We just experienced that in full measure.”
How did Bobby take it?
BC: “He took it with a great degree of class and maturity. We delivered the news and had a conversation about a bunch of different things. He handled it very well.”
LL: “I’ve been a part of several managerial changes over the course of my career and I think Bobby Valentine ended it with more dignity and class and constructiveness than anybody I can remember.”
Will Ben be more autonomous in this search than last?
LL: “I think the question is based on a false assumption, it really is. Ben led the search last year. He’s going to lead the search this year. The decision, there will be recommendations made along the way but the decision will ultimately be a consensus decision made by Ben and myself and John and Tom, but Ben will begin the leadership search immediately.”
How wide-ranging will the search be?
BC: “I think we need to, first of all, we’re not prepared to talk about names. It’s too early to do that. We know that there needs to be a bit of a reset with the culture in the clubhouse. We’ve lost too many games for the last seven months of play, Major League play, so that has a sort of wearing down, can have a certain wearing down effect. We need to revitalize the clubhouse, the manager’s part of it — the manager’s not the only part of it — but the manager’s part of it. We need someone to help us accomplish that. A lot of the qualities that we were looking for last year we’ll be looking for again.”
Target date?
BC: “No, we’ll work hard and judiciously and we’d like to, of course, rather do it in less time than last year. We need to find the right guy, more than anything.”
How much do you look for experience?
BC: “Yeah, we’re at a different point in the team’s evolution compared to last year. At the time last year when we made the decision to hire Bobby, we were fully expecting to contend in 2012. We had a sort of mature roster that we felt like if some things went our way, and we got some breaks, we had a chance to win. So I think in the end experience weighed in our decision. It’ll still be a factor, but the teams at a different point. We’ll see, I don’t think there’s a particular resume blueprint. We got to get into and talk to people and just find the right person for this job and move forward.”
Can you rule out Jason Varitek?
BC: ”You know, we’re happy that Jason has joined the organization in the role he’s in. I think he’s enjoyed getting some time away from sort of the daily grind of being in the clubhouse for 12 hours a day, and he’s expressed to me that that’s been good for him. Look forward to working with him in this role for now, and we haven’t discussed anything beyond that.”
What about the coaches?
BC: “I’ll have a chance to talk to the coaches soon, I haven’t done that yet. Nothing to report there.”
LL: “We do think that Bobby may have talked to the coaches, but I don’t know that, you better check.”
But no guarantees for them, then?
BC: I just, I haven’t had a chance to talk to them, so I’ll do that soon.
Yaz on triple crown: Someone is going to do it
With Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera perhaps being closer to winning the Triple Crown than any player in the last 45 years, it was the perfect timing for Carl Yastrzemski to be available for comment.
The former Red Sox icon was unveiled Wednesday night as the backup left fielder — behind Ted Williams — on the All-Fenway team.
When Yaz led the 1967 Red Sox to the Impossible Dream, winning the pennant on the final day of the season, the triple crown couldn’t have been any further from his mind.
But in all the years that have followed, with nobody else winning it, Yaz feels that the next Triple Crown winner is all but inevitable.
“Someone is going to do it,” Yaz said. “Whether it’s Cabrera this year or next year. I’m surprised it’s gone on this long to be perfectly honest. When Rose broke Cobb’s hit record I never thought that was going to happen and when Ripken broke Gehrig’s consecutive game record I never thought that would happen either. So it’s going to happen.
“One thing that’s going to help him is he’s in a pennant race. Of course there’s so much more publicity now a days, people calling and everything else. In ’67 the Triple Crown was never even mentioned once we were so involved in the pennant race. I didn’t know I won the Triple Crown until the next day when I read it in the paper. That’s how involved we were in the pennant race.”
“Like I said, I thought somebody would win it a long time ago. The surprising thing about it is in the 50s and when Mantle won and Williams and Frank, we had the higher mound. I’d like to see what some of the pitchers would throw today, what their speeds would be, if they came off a higher mound. I could see Verlander probably throwing 100 mph or more on every pitch. Like I said, I’m surprised it’s lasted so long.”
The Idiots bring some cheer to Fenway
The duck boats were back at Fenway Park again on Tuesday night, this time lugging around those beloved “Idiots” of 2004, who snapped Boston’s 86-year World Series championship drought.
There were three duck boats, filled with coaches and players from that memorable team. Terry Francona, Dave Wallace, Lynn Jones, Brad Mills and Ron Jackson represented the coaching staff. Pedro Martinez, Kevin Millar, Trot Nixon, Tim Wakefield, Keith Foulke and Jason Varitek were among the many players on hand.
Millar, Pedro and Foulke held court with the media for a very light-hearted press conference that instantly reminded one how much fun those teams were to be around.
What sticks with these guys eight years later?
“It was a great thing,” Foulke said. “We didn’t really know what we were getting into. I don’t think we did. To do what we did, that team, after the story behind 86 years in this city, it’s the greatest thing ever.”
Martinez: “The thing that sticks in my mind the most is the last out, knowing that we got rid of the burden on every player that passed through the organization. It was a moment of relief for everyone that played the game in Boston. That’s probably the biggest one — just getting that last out. I kept thinking about getting that last out, and when he finally flipped that ball and they called him out, that was it.”
Millar, in a stunner, was the most expansive of the three: “You know what it is? Like Foulkie said, you didn’t realize what you were getting into. But the truth of the matter is that group of guys, the family — it wasn’t just a team. It was a unit that literally hung out together and ate together and liked each other. That doesn’t go on. You can’t buy that. That was the one thing about that that I remember is that we all went to different teams, we all played on different teams, Foulkie went to Oakland, Pedro played with the Mets, but that one group that we had, we had so many different guys from Billy Mueller to Trot Nixon to Pedro Martinez to crazy Manny Ramirez to Keith Foulke, who had every coolest car in the world and cool little gadget thing to Fake Cowboy Millar to David Ortiz. The group, it was a group. That was the one thing, coming back now and seeing everything, you remember the tightness. We weren’t the best players. We had a few superstars in Pedro and Manny, but we were the best unit, if that makes sense.”
So that chemistry stuff was not overrated when it came to the ’04 Red Sox. Millar could not overstate that enough.
“You hear that a lot, ‘What’s chemistry? If you don’t have players, you don’t have chemistry.’ Bull, bull, bullllll, bull, OK? You’ve got to pull for each other. You’re not fooling us. We can fool you guys. You can say the right thing, and we know a few of the teams out there that say the right thing in front of the cameras. But you can’t fool your teammates. If someone is pulling against Keith Foulke because he wants to be the closer and doesn’t know his role, you feel that. If someone is pulling against Pedro Martinez because he wants to be the guy, you feel that. We pulled for each other. That was what was cool.”
Was there a point the players sensed this uncanny chemistry?
“It’s one of those things you don’t sense,” Foulke said. “It’s there. Probably when you look at it now, looking back, that’s when you understand what it was. Like Kev said, we were buddies. When your buddy goes out there, if Johnny is running into a wall or whatever, you want to work harder to make sure that effort doesn’t go for naught. We’re a family. You go to battle with your brothers.”
“We had a lot of team dinners,” Pedro said. “A lot of them. We used to go out all of us together. Six in one pack, six in the other pack. ‘Where you going to be? We’ll be in this place. We’re having dinner in this place.’ But we were all in the same place at the same time.”
How hard would it have been for Martinez to have left Boston without the World Series championship?
“I would probably retire right after then,” he said. “I would have been so disappointed that I came in here with a purpose, and that was the purpose. I’ll probably say that I was the only player out of all the players that felt like he had something to achieve for this team. I was called in to build the team around me as the ace of the team. It took me until the last year to actually finally get it, but I could easily say, ‘Mission accomplished.’ I’ve actually been to the Green Monster many times. This is the first time I’m actually going to express this. After I got in, everybody normally has the history of signing the Green Monster. I refused to until I won it for Boston. I keep forgetting — every time I come back I keep forgetting — but now I feel like I can sign it, and leave my name in the Green Monster. I haven’t signed it yet.”
Farrell discusses an awkward topic
Funny how timing can be. With the rampant speculation about Bobby Valentine’s future with the Red Sox, what better time for John Farrell and the Blue Jays to come to town?
It is a poorly-kept secret that Farrell was likely the top choice to succeed Terry Francona as Boston’s manager following last season, but the Blue Jays had no interest in freeing him from his contract.
Maybe things have changed a little a year later. The Blue Jays, much like the Red Sox, are having an unsuccessful season in which they’ve been ravaged by injuries. Now, Farrell has just one season left on his contract.
If the Red Sox decide that Valentine — who also has one year left on his contract — isn’t their manager beyond this season, you’d like to think a deal could be worked out with Toronto for Farrell.
Anyway, with limbo being the obvious way to describe the current situation, here are some thoughts from Farrell:
“There’s a lot of speculation, obviously, but as I said last week in Toronto. I’m the manager of the Blue Jays. This is where my focus and commitment is. I’m under contract. That’s obvious,” Farrell said. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. At the same time, we’ve dealt with a lot of challenges ourselves. I can understand the natural connection, because I’ve worked here in the past, but my focus is clearly with the Blue Jays.”
“I don’t look at other situations, because my focus is here. We’ve got a lot of challenges ourselves with getting guys back on the field. I’ll say this – knowing what the Red Sox have gone through, with the amount of players they’ve lost to injury, I can empathize with Bobby and having to deal with a lot of changes to the roster. And because of that change, you’re always trying to filter in new guys and get an understanding of what their capabilities are and how you can best utilize them to win a ballgame.
Did Farrell expect there to be such a buzz surrounding his latest return to Boston? “I don’t know that you can fully anticipate anything. You understand there are articles written, there’s things that are out there. With respect to everyone involved, my focus is right here in this dugout in this uniform.
If Farrell stayed in Toronto, would he want assurances beyond next season, asked Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston?
“Gordon, you’re putting the cart way before the horse with that. My contract is through 2013. My approach day in and day out doesn’t hinge upon my status. My focus and attention is today, right here. “
Boston vs. Toronto? “Any place is going to have its own uniqueness to it. Managing is an honor. It’s a challenge at the same time. Different positions have different sets of challenges that are connected to them. Regardless of where you are, the focus remains on your task and duties at hand and doing the best job that you’re capable of at the time and that’s my focus right now, the challenge the Blue Jays have to face.
On what Terry Francona accomplished. “Having been in that dugout for four years, you do get the opportunity and the privilege to see it firsthand. He was a very successful manager, balanced a lot of different things both inside and out, he did a very good job. The history and the record speaks to that.”
“Through it all, through the ups and downs along the way, the one thing Tito always talked about was be true to yourself. As long as you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you did what you felt was the right thing to do, and that being the players come first, as long as you keep the players first in your decision-making and your thoughts toward them individually, you’re probably guided in the right direction to the right thing.”
Obviously, managers in Boston are under tremendous scrutiny. “I’ve never managed in Boston. I’ve only managed in one place, and that’s right here in Toronto. Having worked in Boston, sure, there’s a tremendous fan base that’s very passionate, the expectations are very high, but as a competitor, that’s what you aspire to do and be involved in.”
More on empathizing with Bobby V.
“As a manager, yes. We’ve had a lot of the same situations unfold, and it’s not easy. Its definitely not easy. We come in here today with a rotation that’s mapped out, and yet you come into the ballpark, you’re waiting for the next phone call, and in this case it’s J.A. Happ is out for the year. Not are you on Plan A or B; right now both teams are on Plan T or U. That’s where we’re at.”
How much does Farrell enjoy managing? “I love it. It’s an honor to be in the position entrusted with the team, to run a team at field level, and that’s never taken lightly. I can’t wait to get to the ballpark every day.”
Obviously, Farrell still has ties in the Red Sox organization.
“I had the fortunate ability to work closely with guys that I respect and guys that we have history even prior to working here in Boston, whether it was Mike Hazen and I running the farm system in Cleveland. Not only are they professional colleagues, on some level they became personal friends. We had success, we shared a lot of challenges along the way. That’s what you would hope would take place having worked for a number of years in one place or another.”
Bard is back
With the Red Sox now in a position where they are playing for the future, it was of note to see Daniel Bard return to the team on Wednesday, in preparation for being activated by Thursday.
Bard could be a vital piece for the 2013 Red Sox if he can figure out a way to get back to what he was from 2009-11.
Here are his thoughts on being back in the bigs.
“It’s good to be back. It took some patience, but I’m glad to finally get the call,” Bard said.
Was the time down on the farm beneficial?
“It just gave me a chance to work on some things without too much consequence in the results. I worked accomplishing some really good things, and I’m headed in the right direction, and now I just need to get back in a competitive environment and focus on competing.”
Mental or physical?
“It’s a little bit of everything. Pitching is a combination of both. It’s just a matter of getting out there every couple of days and trying to get better every day.”
How humbling was it?
“It definitely came as a shock when it first happened. I’ve talked about that enough. But it was an opportunity to work on some things I needed to work on. I’m glad to be back.”
Other pitchers have been sent down before and have recovered to have success.
“Pitching is never something that you figure out. It’s a constant process to get better. Once you do feel good about how you’re throwing the ball, it’s a constant work to maintain that. Every pitcher has his ups and downs. It’s another part of your journey.”
How has he felt lately?
“It’s good now. I feel like I’ve thrown the ball well the last few weeks. There have been a couple of hiccups here and there, but it was more just trying to tweak something in the mechanics and carrying it into a game maybe didn’t go as well as we wanted, but it wasn’t a confidence thing, it was working on some new things. The last few have been really good. I feel like I’ve simplified my delivery to the point that I can just go out there and not think about it and focus on getting the hitter out.”
“The initial shock of getting sent down and pitching in that environment after being up here for three years, it’s hard. There’s no adrenaline. It’s 100 percent development and just working on things. Once I got through that and got to the point that I forced myself to just go out and compete, those were the best outings I had. Getting to this environment up here is only going to help.”
Mechanics better now?
“It’s good. You know, I was never a guy that had the same arm slot on every pitch. I’d be higher on some, lower on some, throw some sliders from the lower slot and had success with it. When I stopped kind of lowering on that, it’s been kind of a tough change for me to be as consistent as I can, and things are better.
Was trying to become a starter a mistake?
“I think it was trying to morph myself into a starter too much, trying to change, throw my changeup, frontdoor cutters, backdoor sinkers, just trying to do things I hadn’t done in the past. It worked some days and didn’t work other days. I kind of lost the pitcher that I felt like I was the last three years. I had to kind of do what I had to do to rediscover that.
“I mean, you look at any video from the last three years, I was pretty much fastball-slider, attack the zone and hit it if you can. That’s the mentality that I’m back to now.”
Weird to be back with the Red Sox and see so many familiar faces gone?
“It’s weird. Definitely different. I’ve been following the last couple weeks everything that’s gone on. It’s sad to see those guys go. I’m close with them, and I wish them the best. But it’s an opportunity for the organization.”
Playing out the string is also different.
“Yeah. We’ve either been in the playoffs or in the race well past this point the last two, three years. It’s different, I guess, but I think everyone here still wants to win. We still have a lot to prove that we can be a good team without those guys, so I think there’s plenty of motivation here to win.”
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