Speaker 1: By the Giants into historic Fenway Park, the start of
Speaker 1: a three game series. I'm John Miller, but today's twenty
Speaker 1: three hour with the skipper of the Giants, Tony Vtello.
Speaker 1: And of course this is the return to Boston of
Speaker 1: a guy who was beloved here, helped them win a
Speaker 1: World Series and came up as I think he was
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, Raphael Devers when he played in
Speaker 1: that World Series. And now Devers returns, and so for him,
Speaker 1: this is a swirl of and maybe he's anxious to
Speaker 1: get through it, but he a swirl of interviews and
Speaker 1: reactions with the fans and all of that. So for him,
Speaker 1: you think that's kind of it's going to be kind
Speaker 1: of difficult for him to stay focused.
Speaker 2: Well, I think just a big thing is to get
Speaker 2: past the initial meeting. He'll visit with the media today
Speaker 2: and get that past them. And you know, like a
Speaker 2: lot of great players, I've been around Todd Hilton at
Speaker 2: Tennessee and Raffie, they like to play the game. They
Speaker 2: don't like to talk to the you know, talk to
Speaker 2: the people about how great of achievements they've had or
Speaker 2: any of that other stuff. They just want to play.
Speaker 2: So just getting past that checkpoint I think would be
Speaker 2: good for him. But I know his answers will involve
Speaker 2: how much he loved his time here and the people
Speaker 2: were good to him when he was here and obviously
Speaker 2: helped him win a championship, but accomplished a lot of
Speaker 2: other great feats. It's terrible of me to not know
Speaker 2: the exact statistic, but I know him and Babe Ruth
Speaker 2: are the only two players to have done something, and
Speaker 2: of course they both have ties to Boston, and so
Speaker 2: it'll be good for him to get past that and
Speaker 2: just get into the moment of the game. And it's
Speaker 2: a ballpark he's very familiar with, in a park that
Speaker 2: he had success at the plate, so I think it'll
Speaker 2: be good for him once the game starts.
Speaker 1: And because of the big wall and left the Green
Speaker 1: Monster thirty seven feet high, but it looks so close
Speaker 1: to home plate that people always think, well, man, the
Speaker 1: right handed hitters did thrive in that ballpark because it's
Speaker 1: big in right center and even down the right field
Speaker 1: line if you don't hit it right on the line.
Speaker 1: But left handed hitters are the guys who've won batting
Speaker 1: titles here. And Fred Lynn used to talk about being
Speaker 1: home home at Fenway after a tough road trip and
Speaker 1: being upset hitting a ball poorly and batting practice and go,
Speaker 1: oh for God, say here we go, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden hears ping and he realizes, oh, I'm home.
Speaker 1: Your stram Skeech had Williams, Fred lenn your name left
Speaker 1: handed hitters over the years, and they're the ones who
Speaker 1: mostly won batting titles playing for Boston because you could
Speaker 1: get a tough pitch and just hit a high, lazy
Speaker 1: fly to left and it hits that wall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can use the big gap to right center,
Speaker 2: and other parts of the park are a little bit advantageous.
Speaker 2: But the big thing is, like you said, the green
Speaker 2: monster and left plays to you. Not just a home
Speaker 2: run that you might lift in the air to left field,
Speaker 2: but you know, a ball that goes off that wall
Speaker 2: is at the very least not getting caught. Regardless if
Speaker 2: it's a double or you can get a triple out
Speaker 2: of it, it's a ball that the left fielder cannot
Speaker 2: get to. Now.
Speaker 1: When he first came to the Giants last year, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't help it. Every time Devis would hit a
Speaker 1: ball really well to left or left center. I would
Speaker 1: in my mind trying to say, man, that would have
Speaker 1: been off the wall. That might have gone over the
Speaker 1: wall at Fenway. And conversely, sometimes he's hit balls to
Speaker 1: left that I thought, well, that wouldn't have been high
Speaker 1: enough to get over the wall here at Fenway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it works two different ways. I mean, to get
Speaker 2: you a homer, there does have to be some backspin
Speaker 2: or some elevation to it at the very least, But
Speaker 2: it's different everywhere in the bottom line is hitters hit,
Speaker 2: and I think Raffi as the reps if piled up
Speaker 2: in the seasons now down the home stretch. He's true
Speaker 2: to form of what he can do at the plate,
Speaker 2: and I think the statistics he leads in are ones
Speaker 2: that kind of grab you a little bit when he's
Speaker 2: doing damage. It's been beneficial in the game. I think
Speaker 2: he has the most go ahead or you know, in
Speaker 2: the top five go ahead RBIs in the game.
Speaker 1: Rafe El Devers returning to Fenway for the first time
Speaker 1: as a Giant. More with Tony Botello next no more
Speaker 1: with Tony Vitello, Giants manager from Fenway Park, and what
Speaker 1: a matchup tonight. It's like an October kind of a
Speaker 1: matchup with Logan Web for the Giants up against Sunny
Speaker 1: Gray Sunny Grace. Fifteen wins and three losses, very low
Speaker 1: earned run average, and he's been around a long long time,
Speaker 1: but seems to be having the best year of his
Speaker 1: whole career right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to say reinvented himself is definitely a stretch because
Speaker 2: he's always been successful, he's always been a competitor and
Speaker 2: you know, lightning stuff that he has, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's interesting, Jesse Chavez spent a lot of time with
Speaker 2: him and was actually served as kind of a mentor
Speaker 2: when they were teammates. So I'm kind of hoping Jesse's
Speaker 2: got a little tricks to the trade, because even one
Speaker 2: little inch, you know, whether it's part of a game plan,
Speaker 2: something executed in the game, or just moving up ninety
Speaker 2: feet could be the difference when you're talking about a
Speaker 2: pitching matchup like we have tonight.
Speaker 1: All right, So a great matchup here, and this Boston team,
Speaker 1: they had a really bad first half. They were fourteen
Speaker 1: games out of five hundred almost halfway through the season,
Speaker 1: and then they got hot. They stayed hot for what
Speaker 1: five or six weeks, and they've cooled off a little bit,
Speaker 1: which you might expect. But what is it about this
Speaker 1: team that makes him so tough?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's the best team in baseball record
Speaker 2: wise since the All Star Break. And I think it
Speaker 2: starts with the pitching it does for most clubs. And
Speaker 2: they've got a well balanced lineup. I mean, not as
Speaker 2: many switch hitters as we just saw in Cleveland, but
Speaker 2: a good bevy of switch hitters, left handed hitting, right
Speaker 2: handah hitting, and they're fairly athletic. But I truly feel
Speaker 2: it starts on the mound and you look at their rotation.
Speaker 2: They've got more lefties than anybody else in the league.
Speaker 2: Sonny obviously is doing really well. And then the bullpen
Speaker 2: is stacked. And you know, the one dream for every
Speaker 2: club is you have a lead in the eighth or
Speaker 2: ninth inning and the game is over. And we all
Speaker 2: know the big guy that's waiting at the end of
Speaker 2: the game for you if you're down in the ninth inning.
Speaker 1: So here we go. It's the Giants and the Red
Speaker 1: Sox and that's the Tony Vaichello Show for today.