NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: PHILLIES VS PADRES

October 20, 2022

Joe Musgrove

Citizens Bank Park

San Diego Padres

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Are you going to be okay in a game that does not have do-or-die or clinch ramifications attached to it? In all seriousness, what have you learned about yourself in these two very successful starts you had?

JOE MUSGROVE: I guess to answer the first part, I feel like this game is every bit as big as those elimination games. You look at it like an at-bat, that 1-1 pitch is like a 1-1 series. It's a really big game to get some momentum, especially on the road here.

I think we know if we win one of these games, especially this first one, it guarantees us an opportunity to go back home. There's a lot of things that add up and make this scenario what it is.

I think the approach stays the same. Things that I've learned about myself over this course is the process of getting ready for the game is always the most stressful part. The anticipation, the nerves, all that stuff settles in. But for me it all seems to go away once that first pitch is thrown and we're under way. Being able to realize that and keep that in perspective, that and you've just got to make it to that first pitch and stay calm. That's the most difficult part. But once I'm out there, I feel like I'm at home.

Q. Yu Darvish and Blake Snell have different approaches to getting guys out than you do, but how much can you glean from watching them in terms of attacking this Phillies lineup?

JOE MUSGROVE: I think I get a little bit more watching the video of Darvish, even though he's got three different shapes of breaking balls. Mine are pretty similar. Curveball, slider, cutter. He's got three different speeds of cutters, two different speeds of sliders, two curveballs.

So it's tough to compare the slider worked for him, it's going to work for me, because they're very different pitches. You see a lot in the tendencies as far as aggressiveness in the count and where they're being aggressive, what you can attack them with late with two strikes.

I guess without giving away too much of my game plan, I feel like I have a good idea what I want to do after watching those two games and comparing those notes with the notes I make personally on my known.

Q. As someone in the game, can you relate to the kind of season that Josh Hader has had, or is it even too volatile to understand for someone that plays the game as well?

JOE MUSGROVE: Yeah, everyone goes through struggles at some point in the year, and he'd been untouchable for the last three, four years, maybe more. Extremely impressive to have that kind of consistency. It's not as easy as he makes it look.

It catches up with everyone at one point or another to go from being the best closing arm in baseball to not being able to get out of a single inning. It was tough to watch for him.

For us, no one on our side felt like we just traded for the best closer and he ain't the best closer anymore. We all knew he was going to come around. It's just a matter of weathering that storm and he didn't waver once in his self-belief and his confidence.

It's impressive to see him struggle as hard as he did, and then get right back to that No. 1 status form he's been in for the last four years and without batting an eye. He continued to go about his business. You never saw the big blowups. It was always trusting in his work and knowing he was going to come around.

I think diving into some of the analytics stuff and the numbers of some of the guys on our team, our analytics team was helpful for him. Ultimately, I think it's just confidence. You can't give up on yourself. You can't give into that crappy feeling of getting rocked over and over and struggling to get out of innings. Things are going to turn your way at some point or another.

He was very consistent in his routine and his approach.

Q. Joe, you seemed to thrive in New York in that win-or-go-home. Is there anything about these type of environments -- obviously Philly is going to be, I'm sure, right up there as well. Is there something about these type of environments that really locks you in?

JOE MUSGROVE: Yeah, I've been beaten down by the crowds at times early on in my postseason career. The crowds really got to me. I think ultimately it's just I got a way better understanding of myself and how things work. There's certain triggers that I have and what it is that really gets to me. And being able to have some awareness of what those things are before I go into a moment like this is very helpful.

I don't know. I almost like pitching on the road a little more than I do pitching at home. Something about having your back up against a wall and having everyone weighing down on you. Something like that allows me to tap into a different level.

Yeah, as fun as it is pitching at Petco, I enjoy the ones on the road just as much.

Q. Joe, what do you take from that start against Philadelphia in June? A little outlier for you.

JOE MUSGROVE: I thought I threw the ball pretty well. I think I got into the sixth or seventh maybe and a couple homers really put the game out of reach. Up until that point, I felt I controlled the zone pretty well. Good approach to the guys. Just as the outing went on I just was tired and left a few pitches out over the heart of the plate.

That happens from time to time. I don't remember how I was feeling physically at that point in the year. I think it's really going to be bearing down the stretch of that outing, that last inning or two of really executing pitches and not leaving those hanging ones over the plate.

Q. You kind of hinted at this with Hader, but what kind of mental makeup does it take that he displayed reacting to the beginning of his time in San Diego after the deadline when he kind of fell off a cliff to really becoming the guy he'd been almost his whole career the last month through the playoffs. Mentally how difficult is it to make a switch like that when things are so opposite?

JOE MUSGROVE: I mean, I can't even explain, and I really don't even know what he was going through. At the time when he was going through it, I know he's hearing it from every angle, from coaches, from family, from staff. Hang in there. Hang in there. It's going to come around. You're fine. We trust in you.

I think the last thing he needs is another guy coming up and telling him the same thing. But we were all in his corner supporting him.

At the same time, as he's turned this around and come up with his heater again, I'm not going to be the guy to go up and say, man, you've got it figured out now and kind of curse him.

We're letting him do his thing. We're building him up and motivating him and pushing him in the right direction, and he's putting in the results to get the results.

Somewhere down the line after this is all over, we'll talk about it. Or maybe when we're celebrating next, we'll talk about that.

Yeah, it's just impressive to see what he went through. Also you add on top of that, coming to a new city and being with a new team who's in dire need of a lockdown arm in the back of bullpen. And him not being able to produce immediately, I know that was breaking him down inside.

So there's a lot of things even as players that you don't fully recognize until some time goes by and you start to analyze what happened and what was going through his mind. It just goes to show, if you're going to be a closer in this game, you've got to have a different mindset than everything else. You've got to be able to block things out and move past some failure, and he's done that better than just about anybody I've been around.

Q. For someone that's played behind you every start that you see up close and personal, on the one hand, awards aren't that meaningful to guys, but Manny Machado is not one of the three finalists for the Gold Glove in the league at third base. What's your reaction to that?

JOE MUSGROVE: It's hard. The guys he's going up against -- there's a lot of really good third basemen especially in this league. Watching Arenado and playing against him down stretch, he's about as consistent as it gets at third.

Manny is every bit deserving of that. I don't know how many errors he made this year compared to Arenado or whoever's going to get that. Who are the final three? Do we know?

Ke'Bryan Hayes? Another good player.

Overall, the Gold Glove, he's been so consistent at third base. There's blunders here and there just like with everybody, but I think the overall impact of him as a player, not just as a defensive guy, is what he brings to the table for us.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a guy that you expect to be in the top three every year at third base.

Q. This is an eventful season, struggle, contract. Like what did you take out of the middle part of the season and kind of how you reworked things, I guess specifically, how it helped you finish so strong and you're pitching well now?

JOE MUSGROVE: Kind of going back to what I said earlier, at some point you're not going to be unhittable all season. If you do, those are the Cy Young-type seasons that one guy has out of all the pitchers in baseball. One guy does that every year.

You're going along -- I think I was through 12, 13 straight quality starts. And that's always in the back of your mind, like I can keep this going. I feel right, starting to understand myself more and more. But down the stretch of the season, the last four or five innings, I had, I think I gave up maybe one run through the course of those.

I look back at the middle months where I struggled, and if I don't go through those struggles and make the adjustments or try something different, the way I attack hitters, working something a little different, using other pitches more often, I don't think I'm as well rounded of a pitcher now if I don't go through those moments. As much as you like to dominate all year long, those moments of struggle help shape you for the biggest moments of the year.

Q. Manny is not a finalist, but you have four finalists for Golden Glove, shortstop, second base, center fielder, right fielder. Could you describe their defense.

JOE MUSGROVE: Again, a really consistent part of our team. That was one thing we prided ourselves early in the year we're not going to make errors. If the ball is hit to us, we're going to field the ball, catch the ball. Just ultimately not giving away free outs. When the outs are there, you've got to take them.

Especially through the middle part of the year, we were struggling to get our bats consistently going. There was an extra emphasis on really holding it down on the defensive side of the ball and keeping the runs at a minimum. So that the one or two swings that we get through the course of the game can win us a game.

Early on in the year, we had a really good record in one-run ball games and extra inning games, and the defense was a huge part. It's really been good all year.

I go back to that Wild Card game in New York that I threw. Three really good plays by Will at first, Grish makes an unbelievable play in the outfield. And even the stuff that's not directly related to outs, like tracking down balls in the gap and getting to it and getting it in immediately and preventing a guy from advancing another 90 feet, or hitting the right cutoff guy and not trying to overthrow and get the guy out at third that's tagging up. Instead keeping the guy at first base and keeping the double play in order and us getting the pitch executed and getting the double play on the next one.

Those are things that go unnoticed because you're not recording outs with every throw and every play. But that's one thing that I really like as a pitcher is when my outfield hustles to the ball and it's hit down the line or in the gap and gets it in as quick as they can. If you keep guys on base, I can keep them from scoring, but if they're advancing, it makes it really difficult.

Yeah, our defense has been really good this year.

Q. Back to something you said earlier about the crowds in your career early in the postseason. Does 2015 feel like a lifetime ago? Different role, different league, different team and all that?

JOE MUSGROVE: I feel like a different person from then. At the time, I'd never been in that situation. There was a lot of excitement, tons and tons of nerves. I think at the time I was probably a little bit intimidated with some of the guys around me, not wanting to fail for guys like Verlander and McCann and Beltran, names go on and on. Just really wanting to do my job and not really thinking about what I have to do to do it, just how am I going to do it.

Like I said, I think understanding myself a little more and knowing how I handle these situations and these types of games, when things do get sped up, I know how to get them right back under control, and I didn't know how to do those things back then.

Yeah, it does feel like a lifetime ago. I feel like I'm a little more capable this time of stepping back and soaking in some of the things that we're experiencing along the way; whereas before it was like blinders on, next step, next step, next step. Now I'll sit back at the end of a series and look back at what we did and how we got here.

Q. You talk about every season you maybe go through a little bit of a rut and you have to pull yourself out. How did you do that? How did you go through that process this season to get back to where you are now?

JOE MUSGROVE: I don't know if it was one thing necessarily. A lot of it's just not being afraid to ask for help. If you're in trouble, sometimes you lost and sometimes you don't know what the fix is. I've gone down the rabbit hole of looking at old video and trying to mimic the movements and get back to who I was.

Something that Charlie Morton taught me in '17, the more you go back and look at old video and try to become that old person, the further away you get sometimes. Pitching is a game of evolution. Your body is going to change. Your movements are going to change. Your health, the way your body feels is going to change throughout the course of the year.

It's more about adapting and adjusting with what you have and trying to get back to the right feelings more so than trying to mirror the image you see on film when you're doing really well compared to where you are now.

A lot of it is just trial and error, and asking people for help. I relied on Ruben a lot this year, and Pete Summerville, who helps me with reports and getting prepared for this game.

It's really a team of people coming together and bouncing things off each other and a little bit of trial and error and going out and trusting it sometimes.

Q. You guys have prided yourself on pitching depth this season. Five games in five days potentially. How do you think you stack up in that?

JOE MUSGROVE: Good. I don't know what it's going to look like come Game 7, but it will probably be me on short rest. I mean, I just can't say enough about Austin Nola and what he's done for our staff. I know we've executed pitches really well, but his ability to navigate a lineup and the education he has on these lineups and what these guys like to do and their tendencies puts us in a good spot to go out there and really focus on execution and not worry so much: Is this the right pitch at the right time?

He knows what guys we can attack early with the sinkers, cutters and get quick outs, which guys we need to be a little more careful with. I think he's a big piece of why our staff has been successful this year.

Q. You talked a little about how you changed to let the negativity from the crowd affect you less. Is that something you're doing differently in your preparation or how you are on the mound? What looks different in your start days?

JOE MUSGROVE: I guess it's just kind of giving into it a little bit. You know you can't avoid it. You can't make it go away. It's trying to dive in and embrace those things. I think a lot of it, like I said earlier, just goes back to awareness.

We do a lot of visualization in the game. I'm sure everyone has their own way of doing it. A lot of it is positive visualization, seeing yourself dominate and execute all your pitches, going through the course of the game exactly how you want it to go.

I kind of flip things around a little bit. The day before I start, I put myself in uncomfortable situations. What's it going to sound like? What's it going to feel like? What's my mind going to think? What am I going to do? All the tendencies I've had in the past.

It creates an awareness if those moments come up in the game, if you feel like you've been there before, you're ready to take it on as opposed to visualizing and dominating the whole game. The first inning and you get in a bases-loaded jam and it's nothing you expected, and your heart is racing, you speed up a little bit.

I think it's just awareness, just being aware of anything that could possibly happen and might happen and know how to handle it.

Q. This year in the postseason so far, starters are throwing more innings than relievers, which is a change from the past couple of years. I'm just curious if you have a particular theory why.

JOE MUSGROVE: All the pitches are nasty right now. Everyone in the postseason is pitching their best baseball. I mean, you look at it down the course of a postseason stretch, the more you can have your starters run out there, the less you have to show the bullpen arms, and I know the bullpen arms are some of the best arms on the team.

You look at that Dodger series, we got a chance to look at some of their bullpen arms early on in the series, and I think it paid off in the stretch. We had a heck of a time with Almonte and Vesia, and those were the guys we ended up getting to in the long run.

Bob is a guy that loves to run starters out there. We love it as pitchers. We take pride in our ability to stay healthy and maintain the quality of our stuff deep into the game. If we get a chance, I know everyone in that dugout on the pitching staff is going to take the ball that last game if they get an opportunity.

Q. I don't know how many times you've pitched here. I'm sure it's not going to be like it will be tomorrow. Is there anything you can take from that or anything you take from what you dealt with in New York and other times to pitch? Also it's 1-1 rather than 0-2, how does that change?

JOE MUSGROVE: It's real easy to get caught up in the moment. Every stadium's got a different way of going about getting the crowd going and the music they use and some of the sound effects that go into play with three balls. Like you saw in New York, how loud it gets there with three balls and pressure for the pitcher to execute pitches.

I know I keep saying it's about having a little bit of awareness of where you're at and what could be coming your way and ultimately slowing down and making one pitch at a time. The atmosphere is the only thing that changes. The game is still exactly the same. I know their lineup is going to be just as amped up as I'm going to be on the mound. It's really going to come down to who can execute better and make less mistakes.

Q. (No microphone)?

JOE MUSGROVE: Maybe three, four. A couple times with Pittsburgh and then I threw here last year.