Bruce Bochy on the Rangers' disappointing championship defense, pitching injuries

KRLD-FM / 105.3 The Fan

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy joined the K&C Masterpiece to talk about the embarrassment the club feels about not being able to properly defend their World Series title from last year, where the team stands on the pitching injury front, and more.

Transcript

00:00Chris Young was with us on Monday and he said, just talking about the season in general,

00:20this is not what we expected and I expect our players to be as equally embarrassed as

00:24I am about how we've played.

00:26Is that a fair way to put the season and do you get that sense from any of the players?

00:31Oh I think so, yeah.

00:33I think they're all disappointed at how it's gone this year with the offense.

00:42I'm sure as a group, yeah, it is embarrassing for us to play the way we did last year and

00:53end up having the season go like this.

00:56It's not over, but I'll say this, I check with guys if they need a day, whatever, they

01:04all want to play.

01:06They all want to try to finish strong and I think that's important for the club, for

01:10the fans, for all of us.

01:12You never know, you still could get on a crazy streak.

01:15We've been saying that for a while, but ran into a buzzsaw last night, obviously.

01:23I think we've got to look at, each of us has got to look at each other, I mean ourselves

01:30and us as a group collectively and just say, hey, we've got work to do.

01:36I've said this game is for the humble or the guys who are about to be humbled and it's

01:43a humbling season for us.

01:50As a lifelong Rangers fan, we never experienced what we experienced last year.

01:55All three of us, since we were a kid, it was the pinnacle of our Rangers fandom.

02:00The other thing is, we've never experienced defending a title either.

02:05You've gone through that a few times.

02:07How trying is a season after defending a title?

02:12It's got to be a long offseason.

02:13I've just always been curious of, is it kind of like a little bit of a lull after that

02:19or how do you get the guys to rally back after winning the big one?

02:25It's obvious I haven't had a lot of luck.

02:33I look at every championship and next year they've all been a little bit different.

02:38The first one, I go back to San Francisco and Posey got involved in that home plate

02:44collision.

02:45We lost him, but we hung in there.

02:46We played pretty good.

02:49One year it was the pitching that we lost two or three starters that year that made

02:55it tough.

02:56But still, we all have injuries, the teams, and you've got to find a way to overcome them.

03:05We've had a tough time doing that.

03:08I'll repeat myself on this, you need your guys to have their normal years and that has

03:12not happened.

03:13It's hard to put a finger on why I'm already tired.

03:19I don't think it's complacency.

03:20It may have adjusted to us, but this is why we've got to look at ourselves and figure

03:30a way that we can come back and be the team that we were last year.

03:37That's what we're hoping to do here the next six weeks is figure that out now.

03:43We go into offseason and have a lot of confidence about where we're at and the guys that we

03:48have.

03:49You look at this core group, there's not a better core group, I think, in baseball.

03:55We're playing up to our standard.

04:00It's important again that we realize how important these games are for us to finish strong.

Category

Transcript

Recommended