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MLB WORLD SERIES: CUBS VS INDIANS

October 28, 2016

Corey Kluber

Chicago, Illinois - Pregame 3

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Corey Kluber.

Q. I know you said you'll pitch whenever, but you're such a creature of habit, do you have to change things or your thinking? I'm just wondering, anything in your preparation?
COREY KLUBER: Not really. It's just basically doing the same stuff in one less day. The sides are a little shorter and things like that, but still able to get in the things I need to get in in between. I don't really feel like the last time I did it made a big difference in the way I felt the day I pitched.

Q. Tito mentioned that you were so conscious of your legs the last time you did it, so now will that not be a consideration?
COREY KLUBER: Yeah, last time was my first time doing it, so I didn't know what to expect how I was going to feel. Now that I do know that I felt fine, it's just a matter of using those three days to recover. I'll be fine tomorrow and then just go out there and pitch.

Q. If you know that you might be pitching again with three days' rest, is there any thought of maybe trying to be a little bit more pitch efficient and maybe get guys to put the ball in play as opposed to striking guys out and going deep in the counts?
COREY KLUBER: I mean, I'm never trying to strike guys out. If I get them to put it in play the first pitch every at-bat, that would be great with me.

No, I'm not going to change the way I pitch. I think if I was trying to be a different kind of pitcher, this isn't necessarily the time to do that. Just go out there and try to get outs. You know what I mean? If it gets to where I pitch again, I'll be fine.

Q. How about pitching in this ballpark, any kind of emotion to pitching in here? It's probably going to be another warm and windy night tomorrow as well.
COREY KLUBER: Yeah, I'm sure it will be an awesome atmosphere. They've been waiting a long time to have a World Series. You know, I'm sure tonight will be an electric atmosphere. I'm sure tomorrow will be. I'm sure Sunday will be. It's going to be fun.

Q. The three of you guys as a group have a pretty big task ahead of you having to all go on short rest. What is it about you guys, all of you kind of have in that "we'll take the ball at any time" type mentality? How important is it to have that this time of year? And is that what's going to get you guys through these next few games?
COREY KLUBER: I think you could probably ask anybody on either team and they're going to pitch whenever they're called upon at this point in time. I mean, it's the last series of the year. It's the World Series. I think you'd be really hard pressed to find somebody who didn't want to go out there and pitch.

Q. Not that the Cubs are necessarily unique, but they work so many at-bats and they seem like they can be at the plate a long time. Facing them back-to-back starts like you will be, does their style require you to make more adjustments than you might normally?
COREY KLUBER: I don't think so. I think that they're obviously going to make adjustments based on last game. I'm going to make adjustments based on last game, and it's going to be that cat-and-mouse game. But I think anytime you face a team kind of back to back or in a short span, I mean, that's always the case. Just because they work deeper counts than maybe another team, I don't think that puts anymore emphasis on making adjustments. I think there's always going to be that emphasis.

Q. Just to expand on that, is there an advantage or disadvantage as the pitcher facing a team in such a short span and maybe facing them three times in seven games?
COREY KLUBER: I don't really feel like there's an advantage or disadvantage one way or the other, just because I think that you can watch however much video you want to watch, you can read whatever numbers you want to read and skew things however you want to skew them to feel like you know what a pitcher or hitter's going to do. But when you get out there and it's actually in the game, it really comes down to who executes.

If I feel one way about them coming into the game and they pull a 180 and they're the total opposite, it's on me to adjust to that, maybe even though it's not what the scouting report says.

Q. Have you learned anything at all about the postseason that you didn't know? I mean, something maybe mentally that you didn't expect, or anything at all about what it's like?
COREY KLUBER: I mean, I think that it's just as fun and exciting as we all imagined it would be. I think that you try to take the work in between as normal as you can. Obviously there are off-days and stuff like that built in, but you still try to just get your work in, get ready, and when you go out there, like I said, it's fun. There's a great atmosphere, a lot of intensity around the game and stuff.

But with that being said, these are environments that we always work towards playing, whether it be Spring Training or the off-season. The goal is to get to this point.

Q. How does your preparation change with one less day?
COREY KLUBER: Like I said, I don't do a whole lot different. Maybe just spend a little more time trying to do a couple different recovery methods. But aside from throwing a little bit shorter side session, it's not all that different for me. I think that I kind of had to feel my way through it when I pitched on short rest against Toronto the days in between to kind of figure out what would work for me. I think what we did worked well. Like I said, I felt like I was good physically when we went out there and stuff. So just kind of try to stick with that same plan this time, and it wasn't all that different from what I would normally do.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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