Inside Chad Tracy’s first week as Red Sox interim manager

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne's Red Sox Beat newsletter, with MLB.com's Tim Crowley filling in for this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON – Chad Tracy’s first full week as a big league skipper is in the books.

It was certainly an eventful one.

Tracy took the helm for his first MLB game as interim manager just over 16 hours after the Red Sox dismissed Alex Cora last Saturday night. From there, Tracy navigated a series win that Sunday afternoon, managed Brayan Bello’s frustrating exit from a start in Toronto, filled out the rest of a gutted coaching staff and arrived at Fenway Park for his home debut.

“As you can imagine, it's crazy, especially the first handful of days,” Tracy admitted. “Dealing with all of the players, getting to know all of you, there's a lot that comes with it. It's starting to settle. This is a different thing. I did everything on the road, now you come back here at Fenway for the first time and there's more people here.

“So dealing with that and getting through that, but just taking it one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. The most important thing is the guys out there and making sure that I'm on the same page with them.”

Friday also marked the first time Tracy would ever touch grass (literally) at the historic ballpark.

“It's cool,” Tracy reflected. “Everything I thought it would be. I told some people already, before today, I had not stepped onto the field. Came a few years ago, Alex [Cora] had invited me down to come on like a Monday for a series where I was able to come here. It ended up raining all day long. They were playing the Yankees and I never actually got to go on the field. So it's been cool.”

Tracy arrived at 4 Jersey Street at 11:30 a.m. for his first full game day after a stop in on the Thursday off-day to set up his office and fully embrace the wild position he assumed just days before.

“Honestly, I didn't do much,” Tracy said. “I just dropped my backpack and my wife had ordered me a sport coat, so I unpacked that out of the things and had one with me.”

Just as he won his overall debut, Tracy guided the Red Sox to a 3-1 victory Friday for his first Fenway win, a night that he admittedly took plenty of looks around the park to soak in.

“It was amazing,” Tracy said. “I commented to the infielders on the one pitching change -- I was looking around, it was pretty awesome. It's Fenway, you know? So I had a blast. I took a couple moments to kind of look around and say, ‘Look where I'm at.’ So it was special.”

After his first full week, Boston is 3-4 under the interim skipper with business to handle in the coming weeks.

“There was no choice but to adjust,” Tracy said. “I knew I was coming up here, it's a big responsibility, the guys are going to depend on me, so at some point you kind of sit there for a while and you just say, ‘Time to snap into it.’ I have to adjust and be there for the guys. The further along I go, it tends to slow, and you realize that it's about those guys, and one foot in front of the other, and trying to get this thing right. So I think we're getting to the point where it's just business, you know?”

Tracy Takeover

Tracy has plenty of baseball experience from his father, Jim, who managed 11 seasons in the big leagues. Most importantly to this scenario, Tracy took over the Colorado Rockies in 2009 when the team fired Clint Hurdle in late May. Tracy steered the talented roster to a franchise-record 92 wins and the National League Wild Card.

That experience of such an in-season change now links the father and son closer.

“We talked about that,” Tracy said. “We discussed that he had to do that in 2009. Not getting into all of the details of it, but he's been through that and understands what comes with that. He even said in his situation it was different because that was his first year in Colorado and he was still getting to know a lot of those players.

“So, the difference being is I have a pretty good rapport with a lot of the guys in the locker room, so that piece of it's not as big for me as it was for him. But we've definitely had conversations around that.”

MLB.com’s Thomas Harding spoke to Jim Tracy about the 2009 Rockies and his son’s opportunity in Boston.