World Series: Pat Murphy before Game 2

Jackson Churio, again, gets two hits off the first pitch. I don't know if this is remarkable to you or not. I've asked both of them several times, and they are just like best foot forward. But you have two guys who are known for this, and yet you talk a lot about you educate us about working the at-bat, you know, keep going. So have you ever pulled yourself back and told them, you don't need to be patient, just let them fly kind of a thing? No, you don't dictate when a guy throws a punch, you know what I mean? it's just it's there's there's a naturalness to it you know when the balls are in the middle are we doing this in the hallway are we doing this um you know there's just a a naturalness natural is that a word adam is that a word there's just like a natural way of conducting in a bat and the first pitch is a good pitch to swing at not always but working in a bat doesn't mean not swinging at the first pitch you know it's like throwing a punch if there's an opening go ahead but just to throw a punch to throw one sometimes sets up another one but doesn't always you know so he has a knack for being ready and that's what i love good bill on the far right second row murph when you guys are doing your prep work for the series and you look at your scouting reports and videos on peralta are you learning anything you're like you know what he's back to the guy was, so we pretty much just have seen this all. No, no, I mean, there's no question. We learn little things. We see he's moved over on the mound. We see that he's got his vert back and he's got his angle back pitching at the top of the zone. He's not pitching today, is he? Okay. You scared me for a second there. Ask me that tomorrow, Bill, or the next day. No, we see that he's in his element, man. That's fastball Freddie. Change-up's been great. Pitch that he really worked on here and got better. His usage is, you know, we wanted him to do it like this too, you know, and a lot of his successful games were very similar to what you're seeing now. Go to Jake in the fourth row on the aisle. How's it going, Murph? You and a lot of the guys in this front office come from pretty different. Am I in the front office? You and the guys in the front office separately come from pretty different baseball backgrounds. I can piss him off as quick as anyone. You guys come from pretty different baseball backgrounds. I mean, you were managing in college playoff regionals before some of these guys were born. How have you bridged that gap just from a perspective dynamic? Like, I'm sure that there's conflict and disagreement all the time on, you know, who's playing and where they're playing and whatever. I can see that you're smiling. The answer is yes. But, like, how have you— They don't mingle in who's playing and who's not playing. They don't mingle in that. The whole key is respect, you know. They came up in the game. Matt Arnold was a scout so immediately I have something that I respect about that you know I mean and a lot of the other guys Will Hudgens you know he played at Notre Dame you know and went out and played in the minor leagues so I can relate to that so there's so many of those guys that aren't nerds as we say you know I mean there's guys that really have a perspective on the game but why not give them the respect and not be closed-minded to because I've learned so much along the way and continue to learn why not build that respect for those people and see where they seek to understand where they're coming from and then try to see like wow can that help me or maybe i can help them seek to understand me what i know even though maybe it can't be measured you know i i can't tell you why um sal is just a little bit better than what anybody would rate a mess you know i mean i can i can describe it but you can't measure it you know so you just try to work together was there a player whether it was during your managerial tenure here maybe as a bench coach where they were maybe better than you expected and it sort of changed your willingness to accept those types of approaches in the game yeah no question about it no question about it there's been players on this team where they're like really high in them You know, and I'm like, ah, really? I wouldn't do it that way. And then now over the course of the season, I say to myself, wow, you know what? I see the value. I still might have similar beliefs about this area of his game or that area of his game, but wow, you know. So, yeah, I mean, it's a give and take all the time. Murph, we'll go up to the top row towards the middle. Murph, back here. Just I remember during the NLCS when David Ortiz had said when he walked into your office, he said he walked out with, like, just this raging confidence just after just talking to you. He said he wanted to go back. David Ortiz. Did he play for me? Not that I know of. When did he – oh, when he came to my – oh, I got you. I got you. He walked out with confidence? That's what he said. I didn't know the dude was short on confidence. You know what I'm saying? He had a pretty good goal, didn't he? He just said when him and A-Rod and those guys walked out that there's just something about you, that there's just this confidence, there's just something, this swagger with this team. and you bring it on with the players. Where does that come from? I don't know, man. I don't know how to address that, really, to be honest with you. I really was excited to meet those guys, to be quite honest with you. I knew Alex from way back. I knew Derek from way back. Big Papi I know through Pedroia, and he spoke so highly of them. Yeah, I can't tell you what that's all about. I really don't think they're correct there, but I don't know. Yeah, Murph, we'll go to the far right in the third row Pat can you take us through your thought process of moving Yelich up to the number two spot last night and I don't know if you're willing to share it yet but are you sticking with that plan repeat the beginning take us through your thought process you kind of switched on your lineup last night what you've done that's not an abnormal thing but what kind of all goes into that yeah you think about who you're facing who your best hitters are who's going the best who can handle this repertoire this way where's the break in the lineup what reliever will they bring in for that break in the lineup how damaging is that you don't want to limit guys on number of at bats potentially you know all that kind of stuff goes into making a lineup and i do it on this little napkin every morning i send it to Ninja and um Ninja sends it to the whole deal but it's it's not as complicated as you think if you and i sat down tomorrow and we answered a few questions and i say wow you know Peralta remember he's going to try to do this and this is how he handles this and this guy and you know what i mean and familiar the whole thing goes into play and you and i have a conversation literally we'd be done in three minutes it comes down to this or this and then that you can peel that away pretty good even remember the guys at the top, you want to back the most, right? That's kind of how you look at it. Adam? Murph, does that practice continue even in the World Series? It's on a napkin? Napkin? I'll show it to you. Oh, my phone's out here. I'll send it to Ninja. Ask Ninja. He'll send you one. How many games have we played? 170 games? You were telling us that council story the other day about having them yell mine for ground balls to pull out a little more vocal vocalization that was stupid is Bryce Terang was he like that at the beginning how does he compare in terms of quietness you know confidence and how has he evolved in that yeah i mean i can see you know they're both slightly built guys um no bryce bryce was a first round pick out of high school you know um yeah he wouldn't he's not lacking confidence you know i mean he's certainly not lacking confidence i don't know that counts lack confidence he just didn't exude it when he walked out there and i was looking for something i was clueless you know i mean i'm trying to build a program and at Notre Dame they got not a not a full complement of scholarships they don't have a lot of emphasis in the program um and i'm trying to they're thinking about dropping the program you know i'm trying to build a program so i need the shortstop to you know be a guy take charge guy And he was so consistent in his glove work and, you know, not super, super talented, just so consistent. And he was such a worker. I wanted him to just step out a little bit. And, you know, you can't do that to people. You've got to let people find that on their own. But I was a little off, pretty much. Bryce knew he was good, you know. Why do you think I picked him for the quantum leap? Because I knew he knew. Ron? Do you typically watch replays of games when you get home at night? Not always when I get home at night. I'm watching my kids playing in the Mexican League, and so I go watch his games because they're oftentimes starting that time, or he was in the minor leagues. I watch him in the minor leagues. His games go through as at-bats if their game's already over, depending on where we are. And then I come back in the morning when it's fresh. I write about the game. I make some notations, and then I'll look at things. So when you looked this morning at last night's game, what did you see on the replay that you didn't notice live? Of the whole game? Yeah. Hamilton, stumble, stumble, still go to third. I get it. He could have stopped at second and stole third, but you get going in the moment. I got this. I got this. What else did I notice on the replay? Really, umpire did a great job behind the plate. It was one pitch to Sal, first pitch of his at-bat. I'm not sure when that he could have challenged. It was like that far a ball. What else did I notice? Are you looking for something in particular? No, just one. What else did I notice? Uribe made pitches, you know, pitch he made inside to Caminero really helped set up the rest of the event. How many pages of notes do you wind up with? You don't want to know. I'm a writer. I'm a doodler. And my mind is not like, it's just, I categorize a lot and like it doesn't just flow on the same subject. You know, it kind of goes here and then I'm like, ah. You save them up throughout the season? No, no, no. I don't save them. I save my journal, but I don't save the, like, doodle notes, you know, like, oh, I got to remember to tell Mike Fasalo to never speak to me again. You know, I don't save that, you know. Tom? Murph, not every manager has a great bullpen like you do. Sometimes it leads to them being ex-managers. You have such a fantastic one. The latitude it gives you to pull a starter maybe instead of sticking with them against your instincts, could you just talk about that luxury? Yeah, well, I mean, it's been all year, and it's a trend in baseball. I mean, there's less and less big-time starters that can get through the lineup three times, and you've just got to measure and feel your own players. You know your own players by now, but even early in the season, you've got to just kind of do the best you can to make decisions based on what you know you have. And when you feel like you have, and you want to build confidence in that bullpen so they can be a great bullpen, that's a tricky act. And when you have a team like this who has so much contact, you know, and now, for instance, yesterday, Miz is going on pitch 80. How many are we going to get out of him right now? We're going to get 90? So I've got 12 pitches left. You know, Yandy has already homered off him earlier in the year, hit two balls hard off him already today. Do I want to have pitch third time around, pitch 86, 87, get hit hard, and now he's facing Aranda, who's as good a hitter as there is out there and is going good? I'm like, ah, this is a better way to go. So that's what your bullpen gives you. It gives you that, like you were mentioning, gives you that opportunity to say, hey, we're good here. We've got enough to cover it. And that wasn't always the case in past years of Major League Baseball. But now everybody knows, you've got 13 guys on your staff, you better believe in all of them. The days of the two long relievers, you know, like just mop up, great guys, team guys, those guys are gone, you know. That's how guys, you know, that's how guys build their numbers. So that doesn't happen. Go to Pete in the third row. It's not very often an organization trades a player that brings them back in a couple years like you guys did with Hamilton. What was it about him that you liked maybe the second time around, and what's allowed him to be so consistent in the postseason? Yeah, I mean, I think it was the versatility. They love this kid. And when you make trades, you have to trade good players, or you're not going to make good trades, I don't think. You know, to win a trade isn't a thing. You've got to get what you need. And I think when they traded David, they knew they were trading a good player. And then when we had the opportunity to get him back, like, hey, this guy might be a full-time player. He's got a little experience, never full-time experience, but he's got a lot of traits that fit with us, which is, you know, electric speed. There's a bat to ball there that's getting better. You know, and there's a defender in there that can probably defend on seven positions on the diamond. So I think he's a great pickup, and I think he's just gaining confidence. I mean, this kid's got a little fight in him that he doesn't exude in his personality, but he's got some real fight in him. Murph, we're going to do three more. I'm going to come to the left to Tyler and the twin stripers to finish up. Can I pick one? Yeah. I'm just wondering if I can ever pick one. It's kind of like a thrill. It would be like a thrill. You know what I mean? Murph, when it comes to Logan Henderson, just from where he was at the beginning of the year, spring training, to where he is now, what do you think has been the biggest area of growth for him this season? Yeah, I mean, I think his consistency, staying healthy, his belief system, his understanding his arsenal, I think all that has come along. Murph, you had mentioned earlier about this. Did you wear a tie yesterday? No. I love that. I didn't bring one. That's awesome. Like, what are ties? Let's talk about that. What are ties? Like, what's the purpose of ties? Is it a tradition? I mean, really, explain to me. I wore a tie in grammar school, every day to school, every day to school. And then in high school, Christian Brothers Academy, wore a tie. I cut it off right here. You had to wear a collared shirt. I wore a gas station shirt that said Gino right here, you know, S-O and then Gino. and then my tie was cut off, work boots they didn't like me, it's a great memory but what's the purpose of a tie? Like what is it? Well that's me, what is it? but you know what I'm saying, like it's just become a... but it's kind of phasing out, wouldn't you say? You guys feel compelled, you feel like you're at a little higher level when the tie goes on, don't you? You feel a little more sporty you don't use bad language, you know the whole thing, I can see it. Kurt went away from the Ken Rosenthal, huh? Nice. Remember that was a thing too tie, the tie, that was a big deal. Yeah, ask any young people today if they can tie a tie. Oh do you? Oh no thank you, I just want to... you had mentioned earlier about Sal Frelick, and you see something in him that the evaluations, the standard numbers won't, won't tell you. What is it that you see in him that's a little better than maybe that? Yeah, he's just the ultimate competitor, winner um, he's got the it factor, you know, you think of Joe Montana, you think of, you know, people that have Larry Bird, they have the it factor. I'm not saying he's at that level talent or been in a position to do those things but he has that it factor, he can take a team down the field, you know what I mean um, I'm sure in a... when you're a man down in hockey, I'm sure he can prevent guys from scoring you know i mean like he just has that grit he has that belief system that like i'm gonna get this done and you're not gonna deny me it's a beautiful thing man the kid's beautiful i don't speak to the kid but he's he's him and i i will finish up in the second round are you a little worried that the Rays saw a good look at your bullpen, obviously throwing, I think, four innings, put out a lot of guys. Do you think they got a good look at them? They did. They did. And that is a factor. That's a factor. Every time you show them your leverage guys or every time you show them these guys, that's a factor. So that's an advantage for them going forward. Great question. All right, Murph, appreciate the time. We'll see you postgame. Done. Beautiful. Thank you. I'd like some feedback about the ties tomorrow if somebody's got it. When did it start? are you just messing with me right now i don't i don't get on one of those things they do not always tell the truth