Tony Mansolino

Yeah, there should be some passion.

This doesn't have to be boring.

Yeah, you know, I think going from being a third base coach for, you know, about five seasons prior to that, you know, to kind of sitting in that seat in the dugout, it's very different.

You know, you have feelings and opinions on, you know, what should happen in a game, but when you actually kind of get thrown into the fire and you're the one that has to make the decisions, it's unlike anything you can possibly imagine.

So I think the big thing for me was obviously learning the pitching and understanding how to manage a bullpen.

I felt strong about my understanding and I didn't feel overwhelmed about the offensive side, about how to run the position player side of the game, the pinch hitters, the pinch runners.

putting runners in motion, hit runs, the bunt game, that part of it was probably a little more natural to me, but sitting in it in a big league dugout and having to look at the matchups and understand your personnel in the bullpen and your starting pitchers and everything that kind of goes into that, that was probably the hardest thing that I had to do there.

I felt like

It probably took me a couple weeks to get up to par and to really understand the moving pieces to the bullpen and the starters and when to pull a guy, when to bring in the next guy, what you really believed in, what you were willing to lose the game for and what you weren't willing to lose the game for.

So that's probably the biggest learning curve going into that seat.

I mean, listen, I managed in the minor leagues for a little bit.

It's nothing like managing in the big leagues, but it does prepare you for a part of it.

I grew up in the game.

My dad's a longtime major league coach and professional coach.

So I feel like for a long time I've had those conversations.

I was prepared.

I was able to think ahead.

But that being said, you get thrown in the fire and you've got to make decisions in the moment.

You have to answer to it.

after the game and kind of what all entails you know with that and that's not easy to do either um you better believe in what you do you better not do it just because the sheet tells you to do it or just because you think you're covering your butt by the analytics or by the numbers you better believe in what you're doing so i think it's