Red Sox - 3, Yankees - 1
Q. Aaron, Max Fried was dealing tonight. What was the thought process to take him out to go to the pen with nobody on and one out in the seventh?
AARON BOONE: They pressured him pretty good in the fourth, fifth, sixth. Had a couple base runners each inning. Felt like he kind of cruised through the first few and obviously ends up pitching great. Had to work pretty hard. I was going to have the sixth be the end. After we finished with the double play, I wanted him to go out and get Duran and felt like we were lined up.
Q. Since the inception of the Wild Card series, the team that has won the first game has won all of the series. What do you feel like your team is up against? Why do you think this is the way this setup has gone?
AARON BOONE: We are going to show up tomorrow, and I expect us to do pretty well.
Q. In the seventh inning, what happened on the Sogard double, the ball that was hit to Judge? Is that something he has to charge it more aggressively? And then he kind of lobbed the ball back into the infield.
AARON BOONE: No, just -- I think it was just controlling the one hop on it. Yeah.
Q. He wasn't caught sleeping on that point?
AARON BOONE: No.
Q. You mentioned how they were making Fried work over the last few innings that he pitched. Did you notice something in his stuff also that seemed like he was tiring a little bit at that point?
AARON BOONE: Maybe a little bit I felt that way. I felt like his command was not as good those final few. He was making so many big pitches and his stuff was good. Look, he gave us what we needed and felt really good about the outing he put forth. But I felt pretty convicted, like, especially we got the double play. Let's go get one more hitter and be good.
Q. Aaron, what was behind the reason to go to Weaver specifically in that spot? Rafaela is better against right-handed pitchers; Luke has been better against left-handed hitters. Were you looking at the pinch-hitting matchups that Boston could do?
AARON BOONE: No, I am just taking that part of the order, then I want Williams or Cruz in that kind of story, Bregman. So I will take Weave at the bottom of the order especially an out in the books.
Q. For the first five, six innings, did it feel to you sort of a throwback, old-time pitching matchup?
AARON BOONE: Obviously both guys were great as advised. Crochet was really tough. Volpe gets him there. Had a couple on in the first inning. He navigates that. He was pretty pitch efficient. We didn't walk off. We had a couple of at-bats, couple in a row where we got to three balls and kind of pressuring him. He made big pitches in those situations to really keep his workload down there. He was obviously very tough against us, and Max was more than matching him.
Q. What did you see from Weaver?
AARON BOONE: Gets ahead 0-2 with Rafaela there and lost the strike zone. Placed a couple hits on him where, you know, maybe just a little up with a couple of the pitches more than he wanted. But, you know, getting ahead 0-2 to Rafaela and losing him, that's the one that stinks a little bit.
Q. Having Chapman on the ropes there, bases loaded in the ninth, then to not come through, what did you see from the at-bats?
AARON BOONE: I thought we had really good at-bats with him. Caballero at-bat the inning before was really good. Goldy getting us going, Judgey smoking a ball, Bellie doing his thing. I thought G didn't get any results tonight, but I thought he had a lot of good swings, a lot of just misses. They got us tonight.
Q. Two things on your decision with Fried. He didn't tell you I got one batter, this was strictly your decision.
AARON BOONE: I talked to him after the inning, and I said, hey, I want you to get one more hitter, and he said okay.
Q. I know it was kind of asked. Rafaela has numbers on Weaver. It is not a big sample size, but he has numbers. Did that push you one way or the other? It is a small sample, but they are numbers.
AARON BOONE: I felt good about him going through there, the Sogard and then probably a pinch hit lefty there, just trying to shorten it with Williams and Bednar behind him.
Q. It seems kind of jarring to face a sudden death game this early in the postseason. How do you think your team's temperament matches up with that reality?
AARON BOONE: Look, we have been playing these type of games for a while now. We have been playing with a lot on the line seemingly every single day. So tonight was a great baseball game that we just couldn't get that final punch in. So we will be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one tomorrow.
Q. You all got some good swings off Crochet in the first and second inning. What do you think changed after that?
AARON BOONE: We are talking about a stud pitcher. I still thought we got some good swings off. I thought G had a good swing on him where he just missed. Looked like a cutter or a sweeper in the middle of the zone. He got his A swing off.
Thought Rosario had good at-bats against him. Got him on the ground, though. I thought Aaron, the 3-1, he had a 3-1 pitch, looked like a pitch in the middle that he just missed to center.
Look, he's really good. I thought we had some decent at-bats. We weren't able to pressure them enough and put enough traffic against him to put him in real trouble.
Q. Was Rosario injured? He came out of the game?
AARON BOONE: No. Once we get our righties in there, yeah.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports