Enquirer Sports

Enquirer Sports beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans talked with Reds manager Bryan Price before Wednesday's game against the Washington Nationals about what the first quarter of his first season at the helm of the club was like.

Difference between coaching vs. managing

Yeah. Don't get me started --- that's about a two-hour question

It's completely different than coaching, because I don't really do much coaching, at all. Now it's a matter of trying to manage the players and the 25-man roster and stay on top of what's going on in our player development system and look at options and speak daily with Walt about the ball club and immerse myself in the coaching staff and try to stay constantly in touch with every player, which is very, very difficult. Very challenging. Dealing with you guys a couple of times a day. Then of course, all in-game decisions, I know that I might feel like I've made many, many correct decisions that didn't work out. We've talked about guys getting thrown out at home plate when we weren't scoring many runs and we were doing a lot of contact stuff with the infield in, and I felt, and still do, that those were the right decisions based on the personnel we had in those situations. Yet, a lot of times they didn't work out. There's mistakes that I've made that I know I've made -- I know I missed that opportunity or screwed up that opportunity, or at least feel I did.

The other part that I think I know, having been around a lot of managers, that's what you do when you manage. You have regrets, you have things you feel like you did correctly even though they didn't work out. The biggest challenge has been trying to manage the emotions that go with feeling that you may have done something that may have permitted the team from being successful and being accountable for that, but also knowing that there are times that I feel like I'm doing exactly the right thing and it still doesn't work -- trying to separate those two.

On the differences in handling player performance

It's a door that swings both ways. As a coach you personalize a performance way more. As a pitching coach, I personalize performance like when guys weren't pitching well or struggling, you could have 10 guys throwing the ball great and two guys that are struggling and when they come in and struggle, as a coach you feel like you've missed something because you typically have 12 talented guys and you think they should all be successful, so when they're not, it's easy to personalize and think you're missing and doing something to not help this player perform. As a manager, you try to put guys in the best position to perform, but because I don't coach them as much, their performance or lack of performance isn't as personal as it was when I was coaching.

Dealing with losses

I've got to tell you, I had to do a lot of off-season preparation for this job. I knew as tough as I could take losing as a pitching coach, I knew there would be an elevated sense of accountability and responsibility for losses, especially when we're 6-12 or 6-13 in one-run games. So a lot of times, that can come down to a simple decision early or late in the game -- a decision that you make with a relief pitcher, a pinch-hitter, leaving a starter in, deciding to bunt or not to bunt -- things of that nature -- being overly aggressive, being underly aggressive. There's always regrets in those situations and it doesn't mean that because I did anything wrong, but because when it doesn't work, you go, 'darn, I wish I had a chance to do something different in that situation,' and you don't. You have to make a decision and live with it. It's a son of a gun, because it can drive you mad if you let it. But I went into the off-season saying I have to know how to manage the emotional rigors of the season, or I won't enjoy the job.

Handling the roller coaster of a season

I finally learned how to take some of my own advice -- it's the advice I've given to everyone in my life since I became a coach -- and I've never been able to actually do it myself. It is all you can do is the best you can do. You have to be able to live with that. I think it's pretty all-encompassing. That encompasses the preparation and putting all of your intentions on doing a great job and having to live with whatever the outcome is. Nobody wants to disappoint. Nobody wants to disappoint the ownership or the fans of the Cincinnati Reds. We have a great fanbase, nobody wants to disappoint them. I know that. I know our players don't, I don't, our ownership and Walt, and we don't feel like we're going to. 20-24, we don't feel like this is going to be a disappointing year, I feel like it's going to be one of those seasons that once we get all of our pieces in place, we're going to go out there and do some real damage.

Seeing things differently now

I feel I've done all I can do with the experience that I have at this point. I feel like the players and staff -- and I always felt like as a pitching coach I got every year as a coach through my experiences. I know I'm not the best manager I can be, because it's new to me being in this position. So things I didn't see in spring training, I see during the season. Things I didn't see in the second series of the year, I see in this series. I feel like I certainly have room to get better, but it's not from lack of effort or preparation, I can tell you that.

So the good news is, you'll never be as bad of a manager as you were in the first 44 games of the season?

Well put. Well put, Trent, again. Don't put quotes and my name around that.