Farrell adapting to new replay system

NEW YORK -- Now that the Red Sox have already been involved in multiple challenges, what does manager John Farrell think about the new replay system?

"There's a little bit of an awkwardness to it right now, I'll say. The one thing it's done is eliminated a lot of the arguments that you typically have on a given call," said Farrell.

And Farrell admits to having to, at times. make a little small talk with the umpires before getting the go-ahead on whether to issue a challenge.

"Some of the conversations [when] you go out there and you're waiting for the thumbs up or thumbs down, you're almost having a conversation where the umpire is asking you, 'Are you waiting for the go-ahead call?' And yeah, I am. So it takes the attention away from the play to, how effective and efficient is your internal mechanism to figure out whether to challenge or not?" said Farrell.

Video coordinator Billy Broadbent is the point man on replays for the Red Sox, monitoring from his workstation near the clubhouse.

"That's what gets stressed in all of this: Is the person in the video room, the man behind the curtain, is he saying, 'Go for it' or not? Just talking to umpires at home plate, they're still growing through this as we are," said Farrell. "Right now there's a little bit of awkwardness to it."