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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ROYALS v ORIOLES


October 13, 2014


Buck Showalter


KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI: Game Three (Postponed)

Q.  How does this impact your starting pitching?
BUCK SHOWALTER:  Well, we just got word it's rained out.  We're still getting our arms around it a little bit.  Dave has got some pitchers throwing a little bit inside.  And I know we've got a workday with Tillman.
Dave and I just talked about it a little bit.  I said when I get back we'll sit down and start looking at it.  But Chen will pitch tomorrow.  After that we'll probably have a better idea.
Weather report is good tomorrow, or better.  So that's about all I can tell you right now until Dave and I sit down and look at it a little bit.

Q.  So just to clarify, is Tillman an option for Game4 and is this a time of year where you'd be comfortable doing that?
BUCK SHOWALTER:  He's normal rest, yeah, he's an option for that.  That would be 5, wouldn't it?  So probably wouldn't do Chris for 4.  I wouldn't commit to anything right now other than Chen tomorrow.  See where we are.

Q.  As hot as the Royals have been is there a chance this could be a good thing for you guys?
BUCK SHOWALTER:  No (laughter).
I appreciate you throwing it out there.  No, you get good things going this time of year, it's about who pitches better and plays better.  Those things, they certainly ‑‑ I think we're all, including me, searching for some ‑‑ no, I don't think so.
I think, if anything, it's great for the restaurant business in Kansas City, that's about it, I don't know.  I know you all ‑‑ room service is expensive at that hotel, boy.
It's fascinating this time of year, because so many things happen that logically shouldn't, but they do.  And you go away from the norm.  That's why it's fascinating to watch.  That's why Duke beat Georgia Tech, who knows, as Wieters told me they would.  You get an off week before you play Georgia Tech, and the option, you've got a chance to beat them.

Q.  You may have addressed this in part.
BUCK SHOWALTER:  I bet I have.  Does that mean I have to address it again if I have?

Q.  Dyson expressed confidence they'd be able to end it here.  I'm sure you're confident in your team you were going to win 96 games‑‑
BUCK SHOWALTER:  99.

Q.  Regular season games.
BUCK SHOWALTER:  Okay.

Q.  Why do you retain confidence you're going to be able to do this?  Four out of five obviously isn't easy.  The bullpen has been great all year for you.  Are you concerned about that at all at this point?
BUCK SHOWALTER:  I've got 96 reasons to be confident in our guys.  And just like they do.  Once again, that's why it's so fascinating, you've got these two teams, four teams meeting this time of year, and you can create a lot of positive feelings about it because you've been through so many battles with them.  You've seen them respond so many times.
I'm very careful about saying something that makes my players' job harder than it is.  So that's why I try to keep in mind, you think about the words, how they reflect on your team, your organization, the city.  It's tough sometimes.  But I think that's the bottom line.  The game is hard enough as it is.

Q.  Just trying to think about who might benefit from this.  It strikes me the bullpen arms could benefit from having the extra day.
BUCK SHOWALTER:  Yeah, maybe theirs more than ours, because we had seven of ten days to really back off our guys and pitch them every two or three days.  And our guys were pretty fresh coming in.  You reach that fine point where they've got too much time, too.  I was hoping to get everybody out there the first game or two.  We were looking at some guys six, seven days.
Our guys were ready to post up every night, if needed, especially with the off‑days.  That's another reason why postseason play is so different.  You don't get many no's.  You actually have to take it away from them and tell them they're not pitching.  Did that with Gausman in Game 2, because he gave me that look.  It was pretty much all hands on deck, including the starters, too.

Q.  As far as all handson deck, when you look at some of the guys that you've used and how they've done as far as rookies are concerned, Gaus or Jonathan or Caleb, what does being in these type of series do for them now and maybe in the future?
BUCK SHOWALTER:  Well, I think anytime you participate and then perform in that arena, so to speak, you know, anytime they're going to reach back for that as you go forward.  And also the confidence they gain and the confidence you have in them.
I think players in general, they should take great confidence in the confidence you have in them because there are so many ups and downs during the season, even in series.  So you have so many times when you need to reach back for some of that.
But if it's a bad experience, what does that do?  So there's two ways to look at it.  I love how people say this guy's good or not good in the postseason.  And it's true, statistically.  But it's a cold business where everything ‑‑ great things guys have done for 162 games kind of ‑‑ I wouldn't say got forgotten by you all, but there's the focus on what have you done for us lately.  They all understood when the season is over, that we enter the what have you done for me lately world.  And they embraced it and I applaud them for it.

Q.  Is there any chance that you have to push the envelope a little bit as far as base running maybe or things like that?  For instance, you held Nick at third base, but ‑‑
BUCK SHOWALTER:  Watching us, we were pushing it.  We are pushing the envelope compared to them, it may not look as much.

Q.  You held the runner at third in the 7th?
BUCK SHOWALTER:  He'd have been out by about five steps.  Best throwers in baseball.  Actually by sending him ‑‑ outs are precious.  And so also had a pretty good hitter coming up.
But if you knew ‑‑ like how everything was going to turn out always, but you could have ended up with a bad decision on both of them.  But I tell you, two really third base coaches.
I told their third base coach at home plate the other night, I'm proud of him.  I don't know him that well.  There's a guy that did it right.  I commend Kansas City promoting him.  Every stop did it the right way.  You love to see a guy ‑‑ very much like our third base coach.  They try to be good at what they did and let it lead to their next job.  I really like to see third base coaches, coaches in general when they get rewarded for making every stop and every winter ball and every Instructional League.
I got off on that subject, but it just came to mind talking about third base coaches.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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