Bench coach Carlos Tosca is managing the Braves for two games Friday and Saturday while Fredi Gonzalez is back in Georgia for his daughter’s college graduation, but fans shouldn’t expect to see anything different in the way the team lines up or plays.
“It’s an honor, No. 1, to (manage),” said Tosca, a former Toronto Blue Jays manager who has served as Gonzalez’s bench coach since 2007 with the Marlins. “You’re trying to do everything you can to put your team in good position, trying to cover all the bases. I have a pretty good model to follow.”
Tosca and Gonzalez went over lineups for Friday and Saturday, and Tosca won’t have the Braves become a different sort of team for a couple of days while the boss is away. Gonzalez’s daughter, Gabrielle, graduates from Georgia Southern in Statesboro on Saturday morning.
“There’s very little philosophical or strategic things that Fredi and I differ on,” Tosca said. “We came up the same way, studying the same things and admiring the same people. And we talk on a nightly basis here. So it’s not going to be anything unveiled that’s not consistent with anything he does.”
Tosca and Gonzalez both were born in Cuba, and both were minor league managers in the Marlins organization in the 1990s. Tosca, 59, is 10 years older.
Tosca joined Buck Martinez’s staff as third-base coach with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2002 and took over as manager when Martinez was fired that June. Tosca had an 86-76 record in 2003 in his only full season as a major league manager, and a 191-191 record in parts of three seasons with the Blue Jays before he was fired 111 games into the 2004 season.
The only times he’s managed since then were when Gonzalez got thrown out of games and a one-game stint when Gonzalez attended his daughter’s high school graduation.
“I have a desire to manage again,” Tosca said. “But managing someone else’s team is not exactly what I call managing. Again, it’s an honor to do it. It’s an honor to do it for the Atlanta Braves, but we’re going to go on with business as usual here. This is Fredi’s team and the Atlanta Braves’ team.
“We’re going to try to be as consistent as we can, depending on what the situation gives us. Sometimes you’re caught in a situation where whatever move you make is going to be iffy. But managing the game is something that gets your adrenaline going. It’s fun.”
One thing he didn’t expect to happen Friday or Saturday: a Tosca ejection. He and the staff had not discussed who would take over if Tosca were tossed.
He laughed when asked what it might take for him to get upset enough to be thrown out in one of the two games.
“It would probably take a lot,” he said. “I kind of look at this as the same situation that I would be in when I do the split-squads in spring training. It’s not the time to be getting thrown out of a game.”
Win or lose, the results will be added to Gonzalez’s managerial record, not Tosca’s. That’s the rule in fill-in situations.
