Eduardo Rodriguez's pitching performance was so good, his manager couldn't find fault with it. Not even the three-run homer to outfielder Kyle Tucker that Rodriguez yielded in the fourth that, temporarily anyway, gave the Houston Astros some slight hope.
"One 0-and-2 pitch that we really don't care (about),'' shrugged Alex Cora after the Sox took Game 3 of the ALCS 12-3, "because one of the things I told him (was), 'Hey man, we've got to throw strikes. Don't walk people.' Make them earn it, and he did. The fact that he went six innings was very important to us. He was outstanding.''
Not that Cora was completely pleased with Rodriguez's outing.
After Rodriguez got Carlos Correa to ground out to second for the final out of the sixth inning -- and the last pitch Rodriguez would throw in his outing -- he tapped his watch in Correa's direction, a clear reference to the Houston shortstop pointing to his watch and shouting 'It's my time!'' when he homered off the Sox in Game 1.
The Fox telecast of the game showed Cora in the dugout responding angrily to the display, shouting, "Hey! No, no!''
Cora and Correa, both Puerto Ricans, are close and formed a bond when Cora was the bench coach in 2017. But Cora would have responded negatively, no matter the target.
"Because we don't act that way,'' said Cora. "We just show up, we play and we move on and (Rodriguez) knows. I let him know. We don't have to do that. If we're looking for motivation outside of what we're trying to accomplish, we're in the wrong business. The only motivation we have is to win four games against them and move on to the next round.
"It's not that I'm mad at him. He understands, but we're not that way. We talk about a humble approach and humble players and that's who we are. We like to grind and we like to play. But we don't do that.''
Rodriguez, properly chastised, understood his manager's anger.
"It was something that was part of the moment,'' said Rodriguez. "I feel bad for myself because I (did) that, you know what I mean? I will even apologize to Correa if I see him in person because that's not something I normally do and it was just part of the game,. That's it.''
With that one black mark on his night, there was plenty else to celebrate about Rodriguez.
He retired nine of the first 10 hitters he faced, ensuring that Houston wasn't building any offensive momentum while his teammates were putting up nine runs in the same span. He buckled a bit in the fourth, allowing the three-run homer to Tucker, but after that, finished strong, retiring the final seven hitters he faced. He fanned seven and didn't issue a single walk.
"I had my fastball command working today,'' said Rodriguez, "and I feel like every time I have my fastball command working, the rest of the pitches I can work with.''
Battery mate Christian Vazquez could sense from the beginning that the lefty was on his game.
"Like he said, his fastball command was there and after that,'' said Vazquez, "we can do whatever we want with those other pitches -- the changeup, the cutter in to righties, the slider away to lefties. Everything was working tonight, so it was a fun game.''
Perhaps energized by the crowd in the first, Rodriguez even pumped his fastball up to 96 mph at times. But the important thing -- regardless of velocity -- was to locate it with precision, which he did consistently.
Consistency has been elusive for Rodriguez from start to start. In the Division Series, he lasted just 1.2 innings in the opener against Tampa Bay before bouncing back with a much better showing in the clinching Game 4, allowing just two runs over five innings.
Monday's start was more of that, on a night when the Sox wanted to preserve their top relievers and save them for the next two home games. And not even a little extra-curricular taunting was going to spoil that.