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AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS VS YANKEESOctober 6, 2019Rocco BaldelliMinneapolis, Minnesota - Workout Day Q. Rocco, obviously, your current group doesn't have much to do with the long streak the twins have had in the postseason, but fans are going to see, obviously, from their point of view. How do you balance those two things when you employ them to hang with you guys the rest of the way here? ROCCO BALDELLI: For me personally, for our group, there's really nothing to balance. As we discussed a lot, our guys have approached every game from opening day till now in the exact same fashion. Obviously, we're in the playoffs now, and the Twins have a history, just like every other team has a history, but our players don't have a history. So as far as it being on anybody's mind, it's just not. For us, we will answer the questions when we're asked, but I'm pretty sure the answer is going to continue to be the same. Our guys are going to be ready to go tomorrow, and that's really where it ends. It's just preparing for the game. Q. Rocco, a couple of your guys said last night that they didn't feel that they were their normal aggressive selves at the plate yesterday, and perhaps in Game 1, as well. Did you sense that, and do you know if there was a reason why? ROCCO BALDELLI: Well, it didn't feel like a normal offensive effort that we've seen from our guys all year. I think that's probably true. We haven't had too many games where we swung the bats like that. That is going to happen. That's part of the game. I think that the Yankees did do a good job of executing pitches out on the field. I think it was pretty obvious, when you look at what they were trying to accomplish, they didn't throw very many fastballs. They were very aggressive leading the zone with the fastball and then coming back with a ton of off-speed pitches, and that's up to us to make an adjustment to their move and acknowledge it and be prepared and go forward and be ready. Of course, we don't know what they're going to do next. No one ever does. But I think that's what happened in the game. I think they pitched in a very particular way, and it's our move next. Q. Rocco, down 2-0, and the offense really hasn't been there yet. Do you shake up the lineup? Do you use a couple of guys that haven't played, Castro or A-Ray or something like that? Or do you stick with what you've been doing the first couple of games and figure at some point it's just got to kick in? ROCCO BALDELLI: Just in general terms, we stick with what we know and what we've done. Could there be some movement? Possible. We'll wait until tomorrow to reveal our lineup and what we're going to do. We haven't been overly reactionary all year. There's no -- when you do react a lot of the times, players are smart. They know -- they have great feel, and they know exactly what's going on, and they sense things like that, and when you start changing things up from what your original plan is, the feel of that isn't always the greatest. When you have people who believe in you and continue to ride things out in a particular way, in a fashion that you believe in -- when we think we're giving ourselves the best possible chance, we know that you're not going to go out there and win every game and get the best possible result every time, but we're going to do what we think is best regardless of what happened in the first two games. We're never opposed to adjustments, but we're still not going to abort the direction we've been kind of riding in the entire way. Q. Rocco, sometimes you'll hear guys talk about the game speeding up at certain moments. Did you sense that with any of your guys at Yankee Stadium, just in the way the games unfolded so quickly like that? ROCCO BALDELLI: The games have unfolded fairly quickly, and there have been some parts of the game where we're in the beginning to middle stages of the game where we're at a point where there starts to become a score disparity, and you end up in a spot where you don't really get a chance to settle in, and you don't really get a chance to see the true -- you know, the colors of what our guys have done all year. That does happen in a short series, you know, five game series. Sometimes those series come and go very quickly. But it's our responsibility to be prepared to go out there and be ready to go. I think you can probably look at the end score of the first two games, and then we can create narratives and we can create different things. There are guys on both sides that come out there and do great work, and there are guys that go out there on both sides that maybe aren't at their best. When you do lose the first two games, you end up having to be there and answering those questions. I thought our guys have responded well. They prepared well, at least, for these games. When you go out there, you just trust that your guys are going to go out there and react the way they have all year in the best possible way. Play well, give them votes of confidence, pat them on the back, and say let's go. We believe in what our guys have done all year. We're not going to change now. We talk about speeding up, and you talk about these playoff games being a different kind of atmosphere. The atmosphere is a little bit different, but we're just going to continue to ride our guys out. They've been phenomenal all year long, and we'd expect that to be the same next time out. Q. Hey, Rocco, things obviously haven't gone as planned. I'm sure that you -- I don't know if you really scripted some of the moves, the bullpen moves that you're going to make, but when you've gone home in the evening, have you second guessed any of your moves, or have you thought they were the right moves and things just didn't work; that's baseball? ROCCO BALDELLI: So, again, you're in a playoff series, of course every move that you make, you end up going back, and you think about a lot, and you try to learn and try to continue to get better. I don't regret anything that we've done with our pitcher usage. The games have not played out, obviously, in an ideal fashion. Would love to have gotten our high leverage guys out there and given them an opportunity to pitch in close games and keep us in the game and help us win a game. It doesn't necessarily mean that what we've done to this point was -- we made any decisions that I would regret. I would not regret them. Starting in Game 1, when we went to our bullpen, these are guys that we've relied on all year long, and we get through those spots in the middle of the game. Then we have an opportunity to see all of our guys who have done such a great job, see them out there and let them do their thing. But I'm never opposed to going back and talking about things and learning and making adjustments even myself, but as far as regretting anything, certainly not. Q. Do you feel good about having Odorizzi? He's your veteran ace, your best starter all year. Do you feel pretty good about, not being in this situation, but he's the guy you've got out there? ROCCO BALDELLI: Yeah. It's a very good feeling. Every single time we've had Jake take the mound for us, we go into those games in a very confident place. Right now in this series, it's very nice to know that we can go out there and know what we're going to get from Jake. He's been extraordinarily consistent. He's had spurts of dominance. He's missed a ton of bats. He's just the kind of guy that you'd want out there when you need a really good effort and to give yourself a chance to win the game. I can't compliment the guy enough. I've known him for a long time. I've watched him grow. I've watched him come in this year and throw the ball as well as I've ever seen him throw the ball. He's maintained it throughout the year. His stuff has been excellent. His execution has been excellent. He's been a presence that everybody on this team can rely upon from day one. Q. Rocco, one more thing about Jake, you've watched him pitch against the Yankees several times, particularly in your last stop, and the Yankees are historically a team that tries to run up counts against starting pitchers out of the game. What does he bring to the table specifically to counter what the Yankees are going to try to do to try to run up his pitch count? ROCCO BALDELLI: Well, without getting too deep into strategy on his end, Jake is an adjustment maker. He's a highly intellectual guy out on the mound. He sees the field very well. He sees at-bats, and he sees hitters very, very well. We've talked about him adding some -- again, not getting too specific, but some tricks, some things that he hasn't really done a ton in the past. He's added those into his game plan this year in what he does out on the mound. I think he's going to break out all the stops. I think he's going to use them all. I think he knows he's going to have to. He knows he's facing a good offense. But when you talk about good major league pitchers, guys that are going to be able to go out there against these good lineups and you talk about adjustment making, it sounds like a very simple term, but it really comes down to having an answer to whatever kind of comes in front of you. You don't know what you're going to have to deal with in a particular situation when you take the mound. You're probably going to have to deal with a lot of different things that come up, but I think Jake has the answers to anything that he's going to see out there. Q. Rocco, having been around all year, I'm a little surprised you're here today. This seems like a get the team's mind off of it and get away from it. How tempted were you to tell them not to come in today? And what do you do to get their mind away from what happened in New York? ROCCO BALDELLI: Yeah, we called it an extremely optional workout. I would -- we don't really tell anyone what to do here. We suggest things, but we told our guys, one, get some rest, take the day. Any of our guys that aren't here, that's not just fine by us, we probably encourage it ahead of anything else. But then again, some of the pitchers probably do want to throw, being that it's an off day, instead of just taking a total day off, and some guys are going to come in and get a little treatment in the training room. We've treated our guys -- we've tried to treat our guys with, not just a ton of respect, but we give them the responsibility of taking care of their bodies and then knowing what's best for them. Today's just another example of that. One thing we didn't want to do was come in, have any sort of mandatory anything. I think it's a good day, not just to physically rest, but get a good day of mental rest and come back ready to play. It is how we've handled our stuff all year long, and, again, we're not going to change now. Q. Rocco, you've had Jonathan Schoop on the bench for the first two games. There was a lefty in Game 1. I think he had a .290 career average against Tanaka, but you elected to keep him on the bench. How tough was deliberations as far as going with Arraez over Schoop in those two games? ROCCO BALDELLI: It was very tough. It was something that was discussed a lot, and it was something I brought up a ton again and again to discuss with our group. One thing that it came down to was, first of all, Schoopy's been a very stable presence. He's come up with big moments for us over and over again. He plays a good second base. We know he can turn a double play as well as anyone. He's a guy that you know exactly what you're getting every time you put him out there. He's a very dangerous at-bat. He can make something happen. The one thing we were comparing it against is Luis Arraez's at-bats are just very different and cause pitchers to have to pitch in a very different fashion to get him out. We've seen him give fits to right handers, left handers alike all year long. He's probably been on base as much as any hitter in baseball. When you're comparing those two guys as far as at-bats and getting them out there, I don't know if there's a very clear answer on that always. We've opted to go with Luis and watch him do his thing. Again, I don't regret any decisions in any way, but I know that Schoopy is also a quality option that we can turn to at any point. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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