Roman Anthony wasting in Worcester? Could a call-up be coming soon? Redsox CBO Craig Breslow joins! Will Triston Casas be remaining at 1st?
Why didn't Devers play 3rd when Bregman couldn't play? When could we see RP Liam Hendriks return?
Why didn't Devers play 3rd when Bregman couldn't play? When could we see RP Liam Hendriks return?
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SportsTranscript
00:00it is the chief baseball officer of the boston red sox who joins us this morning craig breslow
00:06hey craig hey how's it going how you doing i am i'm doing well how about yourself well
00:13we're doing great and and back on track a little bit here with the series win at least so uh and
00:20i know it's a long season i when you look uh at at this team struggling a little bit of late prior
00:26to winning this this series do you do you look are you more would you be more concerned with
00:32uh the defense side of things or the offense side of things
00:36yeah you know i think um i think we are mindful of both it's uh a little bit early i'd say to use
00:45the word concern but there are definitely some trends um that that we're seeing and we want to
00:50make sure that we're we're out in front of and uh i think alex said it well when he talked about you
00:54the team not looking like they were prepared to play and that's something that changed over the
00:57last couple of days um you know i think much much cleaner games for the last two nights on
01:03on both sides of the ball uh i think we have to trust the track record of of the guys that we have
01:08on defense uh they've been good defenders in this league for a really long time offense obviously
01:12is a little bit more uh variant and we need to make sure that we're making good swing decisions
01:18um you know which is something that we saw improve over the last two nights look like there was a
01:22a clear approach plan um and you know we were we were swinging that pitches in the zone putting
01:28good swings on them and and driving better contact when when you describe it as a team not being
01:34prepared is that does that mean you need to go back and look at the way you're doing things in
01:39spring training uh i think we always need to look at how we're doing things um but i actually think
01:48that uh in in spring training there was uh there was a really strong focus and uh intentionality to
01:55the work on the backfields and in the cages and um you know i think we were all uh really happy with
02:02with the level of preparation coming into season uh and then the season introduces a ton of variables
02:08that are hard to to navigate at times um you know whether it's travel weather injuries all those
02:14things but i think uh you know based on what we've seen the last couple of days uh i think we're on the
02:20right track and um you know i think there's a good level of accountability from from the players we saw
02:27what guys like trevor and and bregman had to say uh you know about going out there competing being
02:33prepared to play uh and and we'll continue to build on the momentum that i think we've established
02:37over the last couple days craig one of the things that this team has changed a little bit
02:41and you've seen it over the years is obviously your ability to run as athletes stolen bases
02:47and you're getting the hits but you're leaving a lot of runners in scoring position will you is there
02:53a chance that we might see because of the speed that you have on this team a little bit more
02:58aggressive base running to maybe add to you know getting more runs in i think uh athleticism and
03:07overall team speed certainly strength of of this group um we need to get on base in order to to run
03:15uh but we've seen you know what jaren and hammy and sedan and recently trevor are capable of doing and it
03:22puts a ton of pressure on the defense so i don't think we want to be reckless uh with the way that
03:27we run the bases but we should absolutely take advantage of our team speed craig tanner hauck's last
03:32start was not a good one for him what do you see as the issue there yeah so i think physically he feels
03:39really good if you look at kind of the the the raw stuff the velocity and the pitch movement that's
03:46as good as it's been uh i think the execution is where uh we fall in a little bit short and he knows
03:52that our pitching group knows that um you know i think if you look at last start relative to the one
03:58against toronto where he you know pitched deep in the game and and and threw really well just a lot
04:03more pitches on kind of the the edges of the strike zone when he missed he missed just off as opposed
04:09to missing either in the middle of the plate or kind of non-competitively um and so i think we need
04:15to just kind of get back to having tanner compete in the zone did tristan casas place himself down to
04:21the seven hole or was that alex core's decision in the lineup uh you know i think um what what i
04:30what i know is that tristan is a is a big part of what we're we're going to do here and i think we
04:37saw even just through the course of the series in tampa much better at bats he's getting he's getting
04:42his a swing off uh he was you know not chasing pitches outside of the strike zone over the last
04:47couple of nights um you know he didn't have as many balls fall in as he would like and we would
04:51like but he's hitting the ball hard um and that said uh when it comes to lineup construction that is
04:56alex's job uh what about oh sorry well speaking of hitting the ball hard how long can you allow
05:02the full mash of roman anthony to be wasted in worcester craig
05:07yeah well i i don't think we want to waste uh anything um you know i think what we want to make
05:17sure is that when you know when roman comes to the big leagues he's uh able to step in and be
05:23successful that there is clear opportunity for him to get the the runway that he'll need as a 20 year
05:28old um i think there are still some development opportunities uh that that he is tackling in
05:34worcester right now um but we are really excited about what roman has done thus far far and and what
05:40we think he's capable of bringing should tristan casas's struggles continue what is more likely
05:45devers at first or roman anthony at first uh i mean i think what we will do is everything in our
05:53power to ensure that tristan's struggles don't continue greg when you look at uh alex core i think
06:00a lot of us question okay how much is on the manager versus how much is on uh on the players when you look
06:06at where you are as a team especially with strikeouts does a lot of that fall on the manager's kind of
06:13plate to make sure that you guys are more patient at the plate it seems like you're swinging at early
06:20pitches and getting behind the comp behind the count how much of that that is on core to make sure
06:25he's getting into these guys heads to be more patient and look for the good pitches
06:31yeah you know i think it's impossible to to assess how much blame goes to to one particular person
06:42over another ultimately when we struggle it falls on all of us starting with me uh and you know i
06:48think it's really important because the baseball season is so long that we lean into making sure
06:52that we have good processes and like i said when you know anytime we're evaluating our offensive
06:56performance it has to start with are we swinging at the right pitches and uh you know when we're
07:00swinging at them are we making contact uh over the last couple of days we certainly chased less out
07:04of the zone um but i think there's still room to drive up uh you know kind of our in zone contact
07:09rates here so in terms of answering that question it falls on all of us and we're all working really
07:14really hard uh to to provide consistency um and and the offensive performance that we know this
07:19lineup is capable of delivering we were talking earlier start of the show uh about florida and
07:26baseball and being a baseball guy your whole life is it surprising to you when you have
07:307 000 fans at a marlins game and and 10 000 uh yesterday is is because you would think florida
07:39would be you know the weather's great there's no issue there um and it's certainly uh uh when it
07:45comes to kids who are playing baseball they're playing it in florida is is that the the attendance
07:51surprise you yeah you know it's it's hard for me to really speak as to what drives uh individual
07:59fans to to the stadium and what doesn't i think um you know baseball has made some meaningful changes
08:07to to the game to drive action and uh to limit kind of the the dead time and i think that that has
08:14uh sparked a ton of interest um obviously you know the the race situation is unique and uh everyone
08:22is trying to kind of make do the best that they can uh you know what we can concentrate on is trying
08:27to put uh the best team on the field that we can and we think we have an entertaining product because
08:32of the things that we talked about earlier like team speed and athleticism that is going to be
08:36attractive to fans speaking of uh athleticism uh devers has been taking ground balls uh i think almost
08:42every game at third why wouldn't devers have played third yesterday with bregman back for the um for the
08:49birth of his child yeah i think it's an opportunity to get uh you know guys into the lineup that we want
08:56to make sure aren't sitting for too long uh whether that's romey or hammy um and you know rafi is
09:02obviously going through a a transition in terms of his role and we want to make sure that we're doing
09:07everything we possibly can to make that transition as easy as possible and sometimes adding things to
09:12one's plate can can make it a little bit more complicated craig it seems like baio had his last
09:16rehab rehab start yesterday do you like what you're seeing out of him does he feel good when do you expect
09:21him back yeah um you know we'll get together and talk with with brian we'll talk with the pitching
09:29group medical group um but i think we've seen a lot of encouraging things uh through his rehab outings
09:35obviously the traditional lines aren't overly appealing but if you take a closer look you see
09:41he was able to generate swings and misses the shapes of his pitches were all really good uh command was
09:46good he's struck out a bunch of guys without walking too many had some batted ball uh luck that
09:53didn't go his way um but you know he's building up bulk i think he you know he pitched in the fifth
09:58yesterday so we feel good about where he is but before making any declaration would want to make uh be
10:05sure that we check all the boxes here there's some cap coming from courtney here because she really
10:09only wants liam hendricks back so when liam hendricks is back courtney will be back in the ball
10:14i love liam hendricks yeah and uh liam pitched yesterday as well uh he's nearing a return stuff
10:20continues to take up we obviously had that little hiccup coming out of spring training but i think
10:25ultimately was the right decision to give him a little bit more time to ramp up velo up to 96
10:30yesterday slider got some swings and misses and he felt a lot more confident in in the outing um so
10:36definitely trending in the right direction all right craig breslow thanks for taking the time we'll talk to
10:40you again soon big weekend at fenway and of course the marathon monday game so enjoy it and we'll we'll
10:45check in again next week sounds good thank you okay there you go curtis velo 96 from liam hendricks
10:54yeah okay it's pretty good got hot in here
10:57yeah
11:03yeah
11:08yeah
11:09yeah
11:11yeah
11:11yeah