Red Sox Rule (14 page)

This is the reality of managing: You are married to your bullpen, specifically your closer. His good night is your good night. His bad night makes him wonder what he could have done differently, and it leads fans to suggest what
you
should have done differently.

It was just a ground ball. It was a ground ball pulled down the right-field line, and it happened to be hit by the fastest player in the park, Coco Crisp. Being at Fenway helped the center fielder, because when Crisp’s ball hugged the line and rolled close enough to the fans to tempt them, they didn’t reach over and touch it. Thus it was a ground ball that turned into a triple and a ground ball that tied the score at 6.

Which leads to one more note about being married to a closer: you can’t take that measured walk to get him. You walk out there to take him out of the game, and you’re no longer playing chess; you’re playing 52 pickup. This was Rivera’s game now. Who in that bullpen was capable of saving him? Alex Cora ended the suspense quickly for the Red Sox, lining a run-scoring single to left field to score Crisp with the go-ahead run.

Sometimes you can say what you want to do and it happens exactly the way you plan it. Sometimes you can sit on a couch in your office before the game, say that Hideki Okajima will get the save, and after a series of unpredictable events 8 hours later, he’s in position to get it. It wasn’t going to be easy for Okajima. He was
going to have to go through Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, and A-Rod to get the save that had been predicted for him. Francona had a theory on Abreu: “I had Bobby for four years in Philadelphia. Bobby does not like facing a lefty for the first time. We’ve got to use that to our advantage. Because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed, he’ll take, take, take. You can sometimes get an easier out with an at bat like that. I’ve seen it happen numerous times.”

The manager was one out of two on his predictions. Okajima handled Jeter and A-Rod easily. He made some good pitches to Abreu, who took and took until he saw ball four. One-run games are where second-guessers are bred, and so it was with the last batter of the game. The eighth had been a disaster for New York pitching, but Torre had made a move in the eighth that he would have liked to have had back in the ninth. Jason Giambi had singled in A-Rod to make the score 6 to 2, with no one out. The manager removed Giambi from first and replaced him with a pinch runner named Kevin Thompson.

The final out of the night was made by Thompson, a 27-year-old career minor leaguer. It was only April. It was just the 15th game of the season. It pushed Francona’s career record against Torre to a modest 33 and 32. But the winning song of Fenway blared—“Dirty Water” by the Standells—and the city finally had a win over the Yankees to sleep on.

The next day, Francona sat in his office and talked baseball theory. It’s a good manager’s check of inventory, a quick assessment to see how he feels about the game. Francona loved to talk baseball and listen to other people talk about it as well. To hear someone discuss baseball is to learn a bit about how they process information and use it to make decisions. Francona enjoyed hearing and reading different philosophies, even when he disagreed with the analysis. He certainly had spent enough time around the
game and seen enough great players to have some wise opinions—he and Tito played with a combined 22 Hall of Famers—but by no means was he a by-the-book type.

John Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino, and Theo Epstein—Theo and The Trio—now have a manager who has twice delivered a prize that eluded New England for 86 years.
(Cindy Loo/Boston Red Sox)