Dustin Pedroia has thoughts on Terry Francona, Triston Casas
Nothing really went right for the Red Sox Friday night at Fenway Park. Not only did they get taken to school by the first-place Orioles, 11-2, falling six games out of the final Wild Card spot, but they took another hit.
The Red Sox' American League Rookie of the Year candidate, Triston Casas, had his chance to make a mark against the current favorite for the award, Baltimore's Gunnar Henderson. It didn't happen.
Casas saw his 13-game hit streak snapped while Henderson notched three hits while sparkling in the field.
The one game, however, doesn't take away from Casas' ascension this season. It's a journey that saw him live below .200 as late as June 12, weathering the challenges that come with a rookie season. Sound familiar?
While Casas' end-game might not be what Dustin Pedroia experienced 16 years ago, with a rookie season capped off by a World Series title and Rookie of the Year award, the similarities haven't been lost on many. (Including a guy who played with Pedroia and is currently managing Casas, Alex Cora.)
And you know who else has been paying attention? The guy whose name has kept surfacing with each month of excellence from Casas.
"He’s playing great, man," Pedroia on the 'Baseball Isn't Boring' podcast when asked about Casas. "You get thrown into an environment as a young player and there are a lot of expectations. At the big league level, it’s hard, man. There is no level higher. To have patience with a young player, obviously you take a hit in the short term but in the long term you get so many gains as an organization. That’s what happened. Did everybody know he was going to hit? Yeah. Did they know it was going to take a month, two months, a year? You don’t know. You don’t know how many at-bats it’s going to take to be himself.
"To see what he is doing is outstanding. It’s great. I think he has realized now the game is not about … I haven’t talked to him … but the game at that level is not about you doing certain things before the game, you have to do this, you have to do that. The game is about adjustments and being able to adjust to the other team making adjustments to you. And the faster you make adjustments, the better player you’re going to be. Now I see him from watching the game making adjustments, not only game to game but pitch to pitch and that’s what makes a good hitter. If you can make adjustments pitch to pitch you’re an elite baseball player at the major league level. If you can make adjustments from at-bat to at-bat, you’re a good major league player. That’s the difference. You make adjustments week to week? Guess what? You’re a below average major league levels. The game is about adjustments and how you can adjust to the people making the adjustments to you. That’s the game. Because everyone has talent. You see all the pitchers. They’re all throwing hard. They’re all locating. Everybody has got everything and everybody knows everything about everybody. It’s how you’re going to respond to how they know you is what is going to make you what type of player you’re going to be.
"It’s similar. The only difference is that we won the World Series that year. Let’s go baby, we still have time."
With just 21 games left in the regular season, that is becoming debatable. But what isn't up for discussion is how powerful Pedroia's example can be for Casas.
The former second baseman finished with a .317 batting average and .823 OPS during that 2007 season, managing the numbers after hitting just .182 with a .544 OPS in April. But thanks to the belief of some key people around him, Pedroia found his way.
All of it rings true this time around with a completely different player and person. What they share, however, is an eerily similar story.
"He always saw value in me because my goal every day was to show up to win and that’s how he thought, so we always thought," Pedroia said of then-manager Terry Francona.
"When I wasn’t hitting I was still making a play in a game to help us win. There was never a point where I wasn’t hitting to where I hurt the team. And I think I was probably one of the only ones who thought I was going to hit. Tito kept running me out there because of my track record in the minor leagues and I always hit. He was like, ‘If this kid does hit, we have something special. If he doesn’t, we have a player who still finds a way to win. Good teammate. Good everything.’ So he always saw value in me is to show up to win, and that’s how he thought. That’s why we always hit it off.
"You know what it was - (Francona) never called me in or anything like that - I was surrounded by not only great baseball people, but great people. Dave Magadan was my hitting coach. I love Mags. He was my favorite hitting coach and not only was he a great hitting coach, he was really close to me every year because I would be down in the cage and we would talk baseball. We would talk about everything. You have three middle infielders, and two of them play, but in my mind the three are family. We’re pushing each other. We’re trying to be better. The middle of the field wins game. I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone says, if you don’t turn that extra double play and get that extra out, guess what? You aren’t winning (expletive). Alex (Cora) understood that. I understood that. Julio (Lugo) understood that. When we had Jed, he understood that. Yeah, two of us played, but we were a team. Alex was trying to make me better. I’m trying to make him better. We fit. So I was fortunate enough when I was struggling was the people I was surrounded by - Mags, Tito, Brad Mills, DeMarlo Hale - these are people who not only good baseball people, but they care about you. I was in an environment where it wasn’t a business. We were a family. We were trying to win games. And we were trying to do it together. That was a great to Tito putting that staff together and making that environment possible."
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