NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: BRAVES VS DODGERS

October 20, 2021

Freddie Freeman

Drew Smyly

Dodger Stadium

Atlanta Braves

Postgame 4 Press Conference

Atlanta Braves - 9, Los Angeles Dodgers - 2

Q. Freddie, you kind of struggled in the first couple games as far as the hitting but it seemed like you emerged in the last couple of games. What turned it on for you? What changed for you as far as just the hitting and being able to get on base?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: I've done nothing different. It's just baseball. I had a couple bad games and the last two games have been good. I haven't done anything different.

Q. Freddie, Drew, what can you guys say about what Eddie Rosario's done for you guys and especially tonight in this huge game?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, this whole postseason he's been pretty much unbelievable. When we traded for him he was hurt and took, I think took about a month for him to get going. And you knew what kind of player. Two years ago he hit 30-plus home runs. So he's just been looking so good at the plate, seeing everything well, hitting balls hard, and it's just a huge game and especially this whole series so far.

Q. What did you think of the bullpen game tonight, especially what Drew did?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, bullpen games are, in my opinion, extremely hard to navigate, especially when you have a wrinkle thrown before the game even started and just another obstacle for this team to overcome, like we've done all year.

What Drew did, what AJ Minter, just absolutely huge. And for the offense to score enough runs to be able to give Luke Jackson a day off is huge as well. These guys have been pitching every single day, high leverage situations, and for Drew to take the ball and give us those outs today was huge.

Q. Drew, what was your expectation when the game started? Are you saying, hey, look, that's going to be me when Lux and Bellinger come up there? And is your goal to take it all the way until they come up again at least?

DREW SMYLY: Yeah, I mean, I was going to have Lux no matter what. Until Chavez's spot came up, he was going to face Will Smith. But when the spot came up in the second I just had the whole inning and I just took it like any other game, just get every out I can until they take the ball from me.

Q. Freddie, back at the All-Star Game you guys had just lost Acuña. Ian Anderson had gone down with the shoulder. I remember you talking about if we can just stay alive, stay afloat. You guys were 52-55 on August 2nd. Now you're one game away from the World Series. Just what do you make of the way this team kind of stayed afloat and turned it on and to be now here where you are?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, I think, like Dave and Mark and Kevin, everyone that's covered us, we've been saying it all year. We had a good team. We just never really got it going, and it seemed like one obstacle after another. We lost Travis d'Arnaud. We lost Ronald. Ian goes down. We had some things that just were not going our way. I got off to a bad start. Things just kind of were going haywire and we were treading water and that's all we needed to do until Alex went out and got us a whole new outfield. He really did. And this team has been completely different from the last two, two and a half months. We've been playing .630, .640 win percentage baseball. So this isn't anything new to us. We've been a really good team for a really long time and so we've just been playing really good baseball lately.

Q. Drew, you made your last start here and it was obviously rough with the home runs and everything and now to be back here and have a game like tonight, is that pretty satisfying for you from that standpoint?

DREW SMYLY: Yeah, it is. I mean, you're going to have bad starts when you're making 30 starts across the season. I shook that start off the next day and I was ready to pitch and I've just been trying to make the most of my opportunities. So I was excited to get back out there today and have another chance at 'em.

Q. Freddie, following up what you were just talking about earlier, what about this postseason feels different to you, team-wise?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Well, I mean, you can run our starters out there with Charlie Morton, Max Fried, Ian Anderson, our bullpen has been pretty much lights out for about a month and a half, two months now. You feel really good about the pitching standpoint and how the offense has been swinging the bat for a couple months now, pretty much since the second half, we just, things have just been going well. And then you lose Jorge who's been our leadoff hitter for a couple weeks and then that happens and then Eddie slides in and seems to get four hits every game. It's just things have been just going really well as a team standpoint and it's just hard to not look at it and say that this is a good team. So it's been fun to be a part of. I feel like we're a pretty complete team going forward.

Q. Freddie, I know you guys were up 3-1 in the CS last year. What feels different about the position that you're in this year being up 3-1 again?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: 2021? 2020 was last year. This is a whole different team, a whole different thing. So if anybody's thinking about 2020, I think everybody wants to be in a 3-1 lead, so we'll take it and hopefully we -- we got Max going tomorrow so we're feeling pretty good.

Q. For both you, speaking of Max, what do you think it's going to be like for him tomorrow, his hometown, pitching with a chance to send you guys to the World Series?

DREW SMYLY: I'm sure he's pumped about it. I think Max lives for these type of games. He loves to take the ball and have the moment. He's one of the most prepared pitchers I've ever been around. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to watch him tomorrow.

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah the last three years Max has pretty much come into an ace starter. So what he's done in the second half and pretty much over the whole course of the season after the first couple weeks every time you see No. 54 on that mound you got a real good feeling.

Q. It's been 22 years since the Braves have made it to the series. This time tomorrow you could be on your way. What's it like to be this close?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: That sounds good. I like that. We were close last year too. I was very young when they went, the last time they went. So we got a good team and we're playing really good baseball and hopefully we can take this thing home and get to the World Series.

Q. Freddie, as hot as Rosario's been this whole postseason, what's he brought to your clubhouse and what kind of guy is he, what's he like in the clubhouse, and as hot as he is, are you guys staying out of his way, are you teasing him about something?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: I don't think anybody has any like stitches like that. We're all pretty close in the clubhouse, especially in this clubhouse. It's not very large, so we're pretty close in there.

So Eddie's been great for a long time now and when you get that kind of hotness, it's a good feeling. And I was on second base for the last home run and he swung under a 1-0 splitter. It's very hard to do to swing under a splitter and he did it, and then he didn't swing under the next one.

So those are those things where you just hope they last as long as they last because it's a pretty good feeling as a hitter and he's a great person, fit perfectly into our clubhouse and things are just really going well.

Q. Drew, you talked about how much you were a Braves fan growing up, and your dad. Have you had a chance to talk to your dad and what did this postseason moment mean to you with all the memories you probably had of Braves playoff memories of the past?

DREW SMYLY: I mean, anytime you're in the postseason, you have a chance to play to go to the World Series, it's a thrill for a player and that's what we all play for. You look forward to these opportunities and you want to just seize the moment and do the best you can. So to be sitting here knowing that the Braves are one game away from making it after all those years, it's, I think everyone in the locker room is pretty excited, but we know there's a lot more work to do and we got to finish it off.

Q. Freddie, you say that you haven't changed anything. You've had kind of these swings in the last five games from the home run to these last two. How do you not change things or how do you not let it affect you when you have that kind of stretch in those first two games when everybody's watching and it's such a big stage?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, well, when you win those two games it makes it a lot easier. So it's eight at-bats. I've done worse over more than eight at-bats in my career. So that's the thing, it's two games and you just, when you, I was shown video and shown that there's nothing different, it just makes you just keep doing your work and you know good things will happen.

I've been doing this a long time, so I've been 0-8 and I will be O-8 again at some point, hopefully not this postseason, but it is what it is. Baseball's hard. It's a round bat and a round ball coming really hard, so sometimes you're not going to hit the ball sometimes. So I've been able to do that the last couple games, though.