AL WILD CARD SERIES: RAYS VS GUARDIANS

October 7, 2022

Kevin Cash

Progressive Field

Tampa Bay Rays

Postgame Press Conference

Cleveland Guardians - 2, Tampa Bay Rays - 1

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with Kevin. First question.

Q. You knew it was going to be a challenge against their pitching. Just how did you kind of see the way today unfolded?

KEVIN CASH: I thought we saw just two really great pitching performances. I'm really proud of our Shane and their Shane was pretty special.

Q. Did you see at-bats that would lead you to some feeling of positivity? Obviously you had some strikeouts in key situations.

KEVIN CASH: Yeah. No. Look, I think we're confident knowing what he's going to do, but when you just execute over and over and over it's just really impressive the way he attacked us.

Q. Those pitches down and away to righties especially is that kind of what he does?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah. He goes there. He's got three different breaking balls. He's got the big curveball, our hard curveball, the slider, and the cutter that he can go to. He had great feel for all of them.

You go back to the last outing that we faced him, it was a very similar outing with the exception of about three consecutive batters. So just a really good pitcher.

Q. What do you think it's going to take to get a guy like Randy going in the postseason?

KEVIN CASH: I trust Randy will get going. He's highly motivated. Today you really got to just compliment Shane Bieber. It wasn't just Randy. A couple guys need to contribute. We look at their team today. You could argue that their three stars did everything that was needed, Shane Bieber and José and then Clase at the end.

Q. What did you think of your Shane?

KEVIN CASH: I was really impressed, very encouraged. His stuff was good. He mixed his pitches good. The at-bats at Kwan when he fell behind I think 3-0 and then came back with a strike, that gave me a lot of confidence, like he is really locked in to be able to come back from that and just be so efficient the rest of the way.

Q. The pitch to Ramírez I know you talked about how good of a hitter he is, a changeup a little middle but on outside --

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, he got him on change ups. Changeup has been his pitch this year. Shane's pitch.

Q. What did you see on the challenge? Looking to see if the foot didn't maybe --

KEVIN CASH: Yeah. When you get two of 'em, I think Randal did a really good job of recognizing it. I couldn't tell from there. It was kind of grainy. But it certainly looked like there was reason to take a look at it and let's see what New York had to say.

Q. Pretty confident that this group, specifically the lineup, can have a short-term memory for tomorrow?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, I am confident. I am. Look, you go through tough pitching performance quite a lot in this league and we saw one today. We'll bounce back.

Q. Handing the ball to Glasnow with the season on the line, you've been there before?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, it feels good to hand it over to Glasnow. It feels good that Shane was so good that we basically, we got a whole fresh bullpen ready to go.

Q. We talked a lot about resiliency this year and tough things that have happened. You're obviously now playing with your season on the line tomorrow. What's kind of your feel for how they will respond?

KEVIN CASH: We need to be resilient. Yeah, you brought that up quite a bit. I'm very confident in this group that they will respond the way they need to and compete and give us a good opportunity to win.