Joe Torre
Joe Torre
Joseph Paul "Joe" Torreis an American professional baseball executive, serving in the capacity of Major League Baseball'schief baseball officer since 2011. A former player, manager and television color commentator, Torre ranks fifth all-time in MLB history with 2,326 wins as a manager. With 2,342 hits during his playing career, Torre is the only major leaguer to achieve both 2,000 hits and 2,000 wins as a manager. From 1996 to 2007, he was the manager of the New York Yankees, whom...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAthlete
Date of Birth18 July 1940
CountryUnited States of America
I'm not sure what is the bigger surprise, the fact that he's pitching again or the fact he went down in the first place.
It was a decision I felt I had to make. Certainly, it wasn't popular, and the last thing I wanted to do was go get him. He left a couple pitches up . . .
With how hard he works, how many pitches he throws, what we see, we'll decide if Thursday is an option or not. He's anxious to get in a game.
Randy, right from the first pitch he threw, was very dominant, very dominant and very animated. We didn't give him a whole lot of breathing room, either.
I'd like to say we're experienced enough that that's not going to happen. But the whole thing about hitting and pitching is the feel you get and the psychological edge you think you have. Unless you've had success, it's hard to latch onto that.
They get men on base, they can run, ... And if you look at the formula, it's the same that Minnesota has used to win ballgames, and the Angels have used. They play good defense. Their outfielders overlap. If you're ever going to get them, it's going to be their pitching, and we haven't had success against their pitching. ... Are they in our heads? How can I say no, when you haven't had success against certain pitchers and you face them?
It's nothing unusual that pitchers and catchers from time to time have issues. It's the emotion that goes along with playing this game.
When he goes to the mound and says something to a pitcher, he's speaking from experience. He's telling the pitcher what he's supposed to feel like, because he's been out there in key situations. He has the ability to get that across.
You don't know what you're going to get with the start and stop stuff, but he had a good look about him. It was important to get him a big lead where he didn't have to drain himself from pitching in a close game.
How come certain guys come to New York and have trouble handling this, that and the other thing? Well, these guys came with no expectations, let's admit it. There wasn't anybody holding their breath to see what they were going to do and they had a chance, I think, to pitch as opposed to try and talk about it.
We are running out of games. Randy is pitching and we are playing at home. We have to feel it's our game to lose. But nobody is giving it to us. It's hugely important.
Our pitchers are trying to keep the game close, basically.
I thought today was very significant for him. This the most pressure you could be asked to pitch under when everybody expects you to win, you get one run and pitch up to those standards.
He seems pretty confident. It's evidenced by the fact that he'll throw any pitch in any count at any time in the game. We needed him to fill a spot and he's given us much more than we could've hoped for. He seems to be strong as an ox.