Red Sox’s Alex Cora on Triston Casas’ routine: ‘We made adjustments’

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- In the wake of a MassLive article that revealed that Triston Casas ruffled feathers with his pregame routines after debuting last September, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he met with Casas this week to discuss the piece and his routines. Here’s a full, lightly edited transcript of Cora’s comments:

“I actually talked to him the day after and we went over the article, and I read it. I didn’t like the headline, because I don’t think the article said what the headline said. I know how it works. He writes it, somebody puts a headline. We had no issues in the clubhouse, first of all. He learned a lot last year. He actually told me that right now, he’s just looking for somebody to follow because everybody’s new. Did people make comments and all that about the stuff that that he did early on? Of course. We’ve never seen a guy with no shirt doing yoga before a game. We’ve never seen it. I played in the big leagues for 13 years and I never saw it. We made adjustments. Instead of doing it on the field, do it on the Coca-Cola porch. Up there, he’s actually closer to the sun. Then the whole nap stuff. If you’re preparing for a game, and you see a guy taking a nap in the middle of the room, you’re gonna take exception. There’s a nap room. That was a big deal for the CBA a few years ago.

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“So take your nap in the napping room. He appreciates that. There are a few things that, when we sat down, he’s like, Alex, ‘I don’t want to be a distraction here. You guys tell me once and I’ll make the adjustments.’ And he did. Actually, he was great to see. He’s a kid learning. And first of all, I want to say that. We had no issues. We just sucked last year. That’s the bottom line. It’s this fine line, like ‘18 and ‘19. I always bring it up right and we talk about it. In ‘18, everybody thought that was perfect. It wasn’t perfect. You know, there was a lot of (expletive) that happened in that clubhouse. We won 100-and-whatever games. In ‘19, other stuff came out because we sucked. So that’s how it works. When you have a bad team, something will come out. When you have a great team, there’s stuff that doesn’t come out. With him, he appreciates the fact they were sincere with him, genuine and he’s a better big league player because of the guys that were here last year: Plaw (Kevin Plawecki) and Rich (Hill) and Kiké (Hernández) and all that.

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“In the beginning, you’re like, ‘What is this?’ Of course. I mean, imagine me doing that with Kevin Brown. Kevin would kill me. Yeah, but that’s how it works, you know, and it’s a lot different now. I talked to (Justin Turner) about stuff like this. The whole rookie hazing stuff we lived. I still remember my flight from Miami to LA. Man, that was the most uncomfortable flight ever, just dressed up and you have to serve everybody. It was six hours, man and they didn’t care. Now, that doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen. You teach the kids.

“I learned in ‘17 with this. The third baseman for the Astros (Alex Bregman). He was a dude for that team and you treat him in a bad way, you might lose him. You don’t give him voice in the clubhouse, it doesn’t make us better. With his case, of course, there was stuff that we were like ‘Oh, yeah, that’s interesting.’ But we talked to them, talked to him and his routine hasn’t changed. It’s where he’s doing his routines that is different. He shows up early, he does his yoga. If you want to see him without a shirt, go to the Coca-Cola porch and you’ll see him.”