In case you didn't notice, the Red Sox looked like a completely different team on Friday afternoon when they defeated the New York Yankees, 9-6, for their first win of the season.
Boston looked like a rejuvenated ball club, and that may have had something to do with the pregame speech that Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein gave to his team before their game on Friday.
WEEI's Rob Bradford put together the Red Sox players' reaction to the speech, which was powerful to say the least. Take a look for yourself after the jump.
"On a scale of one to awesome, it was awesome," explained Red Sox reliever Daniel Bard. The pitcher later elaborated, "It was good. I didn't really know what to expect when he wanted to talk. But it turned out to be some good words and probably just what we needed. He's showing he still has faith in us. He has more than just the team money invested, he's emotionally invested. He wants to see us do well just as much as anybody. It was like Rudy, except there was no prayer at the end."
Mike Cameron had a similar reaction to Bard, saying that Epstein's speech was one of the best he's ever heard.
"That was one of the best ones I've heard," said Red Sox outfielder Mike Cameron. "It was good. It was really good. It was refreshing to see that type of thing. I don't know how he came up with it, but he's right there with all the Nobel Peace Prize winners with that one. It just kind of put it all in perspective. We grind so hard sometimes, and expect to be great so much, we forget about shortcomings and how you overcome those things. It was nothing about baseball. It was about getting your mind right."
Head on over to WEEI for more reaction on the speech from David Ortiz, as well as Red Sox skipper Terry Francona.