NL WILD CARD SERIES: MARLINS VS PHILLIES

October 3, 2023

Skip Schumaker

Citizens Bank Park

Miami Marlins

Pregame Press Conference

Q. First off, with the roster now that we saw it was set, Weathers over Cueto and Hoeing for the last spot. What went into that? And also 14 position players, 12 pitchers. How did you guys decide those two decisions?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: Weathers had a really nice outing his last outing, and we felt where we were in the bullpen, Cueto wasn't feeling great, and Hoeing has been pitching good, like this year, but we felt like having another lefty potentially in the bullpen was what we discussed and went with in the end.

Q. What time did you get here today, and how did it feel maybe different as a manager than a player coming for the first postseason game?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: It was the same -- goosebumps, a little bit of nerves, and excitement though for sure. This is why you're here, right? You get to play in October, and October baseball is a blast and really excited to be part of this.

I'm excited for the guys. I'm excited for the players, the staff, the organization that we get to play here and give it our best shot.

Q. I'm just curious, the shortstop Berti there is playing the hot hand. What went into consideration for that? Was anything done for like defense or righty-lefty matchups?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: Berti's had a really nice year. Especially the last month or so, one of our better hitters. We're not here without Berti. He played all over the place this year, and he played a good shortstop. There's no reason for him not to play shortstop for us tonight. He hasn't played there in a little bit because Arraez wasn't playing second base. So we're kind of moving him all around. He would have been playing there if not.

He's been taking great at-bats, and I couldn't envision him not in the lineup today.

Q. Arraez said earlier, if he had one leg left, that he'd still play tonight. How much does it mean to have that kind of commitment from one of your top guys?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: I think I said a few days ago, he was sick of being on the bench and I was sick of seeing him on the bench. So I'm glad that he's in the lineup. He is the heartbeat of our team. He sets the tone. It was not easy not having him out there.

So now that he's there, he feels good. He took ground balls yesterday, couldn't even tell that he had an ankle injury. Was running 100 percent. Yeah, we feel really good about where he's at physically and obviously mentally he's ready to go.

Q. How much are you leaning on the guys in the room that have postseason experience, like Matt Barnes and Yuli Gurriel, to kind of help you set the tone in the clubhouse for how guys should be carrying themselves going into the series?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: In the end, this is a game, and you play baseball, and you do the best of your ability to block out the noise and, no offense, but the media and everything else that's happening around you. You try your best to just play the game, and the reason why you got here is because you played the game the right way.

Yeah, there's going to be some situations that you lean on and ensure -- I know for a fact that Soley has been talking to the guys and Gurriel, and our staff has been there before. But until you're on this stage, you don't know, right? And I've said it before, some guys run to the stage, some guys run from it, and we've got a lot of guys that are excited to run on that stage tonight.

We're facing a really good team that has been there before and have been playoff tested. So we've got our work cut out for us, but we're excited.

Q. How much of your postseason experience have you shared with the players?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: Only when they ask. I'm not a guy that's like "when I did it". I don't do that because I wasn't really good anyway. If they ask, then we definitely give them what we know and what we've learned and what our routine was throughout the day, different from a regular season to a postseason.

We try to tell them it's the same game, and we try not to make it any bigger than what it is. We know what it's like out there as far as it's going to be loud. There's going to be a lot of cameras and a lot of people asking for questions or tickets or whatever you want. It's all different kinds of scenarios.

Yeah, we have a staff that has been there before. So we try to keep it as even keel as we can and try to give them the best opportunities to succeed out there, just like we did in the regular season.

Q. We were talking to Braxton a little bit about the fact that the way he pitches is so different from Jesus, and even you look at some of the other pitchers who have come up through the system, whether it's Max, whether it's Andy. There doesn't seem to be an underlying philosophy of we're relying on this particular type of pitch. I'm wondering what do you see as sort of the common denominator for the pitchers that come up through the Marlins system to get to you?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: Mel Stottlemyre, I think he identifies guys' strengths, works on weaknesses, is always trying to get guys better. I hate when someone tells you this is just who you are or who they are as a player. I always feel like you can get better. I don't like that saying at all, and neither does my staff.

Mel's always trying to find different ways to get guys better and use their strengths to their advantage and try to get better. Brax is not Luzardo. Luzardo's not Brax. Brax is a pitch maker. He can manipulate the ball as good as anybody, develop new pitches during the season. So he's an athlete.

When you're able to develop and create different pitches and different spin on the ball during a regular season, that just shows you what kind of athlete Braxton is. Yeah, so he's smart, low heartbeat, gamer though, and he's excited about the opportunity.

Q. I'm curious, since Soler got back from the IL, high average, I think maybe only one home run. Does he need to be the guy -- obviously you're not looking for home runs, but it's the opposite -- that you need him to slug for the lineup to go, or you're fine with how he's been producing?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: I never tell one guy in our lineup to slug. That's not who we are. That's not how we coach. That's not how any of our staff members coach. We try to collect hits, and we try to do whatever the game tells us to do to help us win today. That is the message.

If he hits one, trust me, I love it. I've got no problem with him hitting a home run, but if that's the message, he doesn't become the good hitter he was all year long, and that goes up and down the lineup.

Yeah, we like balls that go over the fence. That's easier to score, I get it. But the mentality is collect hits and then see what happens.

Q. For the last few months and throughout the season, we've heard about the trust between the players and the coaches. What does that really mean to you in terms of the context of this team and what the meaning of trust is? And also, how much does it mean to you to have that kind of trust between coaches and the players going into this kind of series?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: The trust starts with communication. You have to have tough conversations. That happened in Spring Training, and trying to get guys to get better. We had an idea of how each guy could get better and how the plan stood out for them. And then they started trusting us once it started happening.

I think, once you get that, then you get buy-in from everybody. That's not easy to do with a brand new staff. Everybody was new except for the pitching guys, and once you have buy-in from your best players on your team, that goes a long way. Then you acquire guys that know what winning looks like in Josh Bell and Robertson, and then you get a Burger that is going to be here for a while, we hope, and you can really build around a young talented player like that. That stuff goes a long way.

But Kim did a really good job of acquiring guys that would buy into what we believe in. They have high work ethic, high character guys that have transformed, not only the lineup, but the clubhouse.

Q. At what point of the season, besides this past Saturday, did you really believe you guys would be here?

SKIP SCHUMAKER: Honestly, this is not -- I promise you, when you see our pitching, who we had coming into the season, I felt like we had a chance. When you have a rotation that had Sandy, we knew Eury was going to come up eventually. Didn't think he was going to come up that quick and do that good. That was obviously a huge boost.

But I knew we had Luzardo. Trevor Rogers has been hurt, but we had Trevor Rogers, we had Braxton Garrett. We had all kinds of really good arms.

Then you look at the back end bullpen. We acquired A.J. Puk, so we had some real depth pitching-wise. When you have that, you know you have a chance. Then they acquire Arraez in the off-season, so now you start building this momentum going into Spring Training. Like in watching it, you think you have a real opportunity every game because you have starting pitching.

So that's when it really started. Now, we had some injuries. Every team has injuries. So our depth was tested, especially late in the season with our rotation especially. That did hurt. However, a lot of guys stepped up because there was that belief that we were building something here and you could see the finish line. I think, maybe if that happened earlier, I don't know what would happen, but because we had this mindset and this momentum towards the end of the season, I think that's why we got here.

But at the beginning of the season, I'm not just saying that, I really felt that when you see a Sandy and Luzardo and Braxton, you see all these names, Cabrera, that have real stuff. It's not just good pitching, they have real stuff that can beat you, I felt like we had a really good shot in spring.