AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS VS ORIOLES

October 6, 2023

Brandon Hyde

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Baltimore Orioles

Workout Day Press Conference

BRANDON HYDE: So there's two starting pitchers for Saturday and Sunday: Bradish Game 1 and Grayson Game 2. And that's what we're going to do this weekend.

Q. What about Kyle Bradish and the season you had allows you to have the confidence for him to go out there in Game 1?

BRANDON HYDE: Just the way he threw the ball this season and the improvements he made over the course of the year, and the improvements he made from last year, he's just had so many good starts for us. We love his stuff. I like his make-up.

He's pitched in some meaningful games down the stretch and pitched extremely well. And we have a lot of confidence with him going into Game 1.

Q. Are you proud of the way your guys seem to be handling all this? It's new for most of them. Doesn't seem like the moment is too big?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, we have so much in experience, and so many guys that haven't had postseason experience. Just today I got to the park, it's really loose, and that's a great sign. Their workouts have gone really well the last few days. I don't feel any tension or guys feeling nervous about the games coming up. But our clubhouse right now is pretty loud and seem seems very, very normal like the regular season, and that's what I was hoping was going to happen.

Q. You prepare painstakingly for each game. How much harder are you preparing for these games? How much more thought do you give to the rotation, do you give to the starting lineup for Game 1?

BRANDON HYDE: You definitely put more thought into it. We've had meetings about the roster we're going to set and what we see rotation-wise and some different options there. So I've been working with our pitching guys and front office on just different ideas of going into this series. We had to wait to see who we were playing. Really since we clinched preparing for the few teams that we might face.

And then when it became the Rangers, obviously narrowed it down and put more thought into it. And we haven't played the Rangers since May. That's a little different. If we played Blue Jays or the Rays, we were more familiar with them. But not having played the Rangers for a while, you definitely put more work into watching and going over reports and those type of things with those players.

Q. You talked about the fan support the other day. How much buzz have you felt around the city, how excited everybody is for this?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, I know our guys are really enjoying that. I'm enjoying that. Just from where we came from, to have our fans be proud of our team, have our fans enjoy watching us. And our fans have been just amazing this year with how positive they've been. And we're a fun team to watch.

It makes you feel proud that the city has rallied around our group. And just going out for dinner or whatever it may be, people walk up to you and say thank you. That means a lot. Just the workout the other day, I wasn't expecting -- what was it four or five thousand people here in the middle of the day on a weekday to just watch us practice. So to see that and to hear the energy and feel the energy from the fans, pretty special.

Q. You mentioned it's been four or five months since you've seen Texas. How much has your team changed since then?

BRANDON HYDE: I think we have the same core group of guys. But I think our pitching is a little different. Our young pitchers have grown over the course of the year. Bradley has improved, Grayson has obviously improved a lot.

Our bullpen is a little bit different. O'Hearn wasn't that middle of the order bat back then that he became the last two-thirds of the year, and such a great year he had, such a great story. But we're pretty much the same club.

Q. Lately the runs were harder to come by, some individuals struggled a bit. Does that mean nothing now or is there any cause for concerns or adjustments needed?

BRANDON HYDE: No, I think everybody is hitting zero, zero, zero right now. And postseason at-bats are a little bit different. It's clean slate across the board. And whether -- we did have some guys kind of scuffling till the last week or two, but that can turn around real quick. A big hit in a postseason game all of a sudden gets you going.

I want our guys just to relax and enjoy the moment and take the best at-bats that they can.

Q. We see teams go under the rebuilding, the process you guys have been through the last five years. It's less common that the manager survives that process. What have you learned from the hundred loss days that have really helped you out now?

BRANDON HYDE: Well, it's not that much fun, and to do it multiple years is really not fun. This is a lot more fun. I just appreciate them sticking with me. I appreciate them believing in me. And like I said, Mike had a lot more patience during the years in a great way than I did. There were some tough nights.

And Mike had the big picture in mind. And I just appreciate our relationship and how he's put trust in me, liked the way I ran the club, to run the game to have a shot to be in a situation like this. And so I mean you learn a lot about yourself honestly when you go through years and nights like that where you're trying so hard to win a game during a tough series, just to win a game during a series.

Sometimes that was the -- that made you feel good getting on the airplane. But we've come a long way. And I'm proud of those guys in that room that were there for those years and sticking it out, and continuing to improve. And now they get to play in the postseason, it's a great feeling.

Q. You mentioned a lot of your club doesn't have postseason experience. What do you remember about the run you had as part of the Cubs, and what can you maybe take with that in this playoffs, whether it's hostile crowds or how quickly the game changes. What do you remember about how different the postseason baseball can be?

BRANDON HYDE: I know that there's a lot to go to it, if you have experience and know what it feels like already. I think our guys -- I don't think our guys are going to be bothered by it. And that's what I felt like those '15, '16 Cubs. We had a few veteran guys with postseason experience, but we were a young team, too. We went into Pittsburgh on a Wild Card game after winning 97 games and Jake Arrieta threw a nine-inning shutout with zero fear.

I think that's kind of what our guys are kind of built like. For me, we've played postseason type of games this last few weeks. It's hard to hold on to the division lead. It's hard to lose a couple of games, the first two games of a series against a team that's trailing you and win the next two. It's not easy to do. For me, we showed a ton of character in those kind of postseason-like atmospheres. Talk about those two games against Tampa here, and just how they rallied around each other, stayed together, didn't drop their head. There wasn't any sort of negativity about losing those first two. But came back and win the next two showed me a ton about our team.

Q. You've gotten some time to study the Rangers. What do you make of that team and how do you feel you guys match up against them?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, that's one of the best offenses in baseball, if not the best offense in baseball. And extremely dangerous. Athletic, power, a ton of power. Corey Seager, seen him a ton. I've been on teams where he really hurt us. Just a really special hitter and a really great player. They have a ton of switch hitters in their lineup. They're really balanced. So when we face see a lefty, you're going to see four or five on each side.

Their pitching is different, obviously with deGrom being out, but you saw what Jordan Montgomery can do. And we've seen that also in New York. And Nate Eovaldi, we've seen him a lot when he was in Boston. They have really good starting pitching.

It's a really good roster. We have our work cut out for us. But, you know, I think we're a good club, also. I think it's going to be a good series.

Q. I'm curious how well you know Bruce Bochy, and what do you remember about going up against those Giant teams when you faced them?

BRANDON HYDE: I don't know Bruce very well. The last time when he was here was when he was with the Giants, and I think it was kind of a retirement. But we gave him a gift, we lauded him on the field. That was special for me, honestly, because I grew up in the Bay Area.

Bruce Bochy, I have an unbelievable amount of respect for. And I've watched closely how he ran games, especially in the San Francisco years. We competed against him in '16 in that divisional series in San Francisco. But he's so good. Especially at that time without with three-batter minimum, the way he could match up out of the bullpen. The players love playing for him. You never heard a bad thing, ever, about Boch from a player. And he absolutely has got the most respect -- unbelievable amount of respect from everybody in this game from how he can run a game and the respect he has from players.

Q. You haven't been swept all year. Your longest losing streak was four. What does that tell you about the team and how does that help you in the postseason?

BRANDON HYDE: I'm not really sure. I get asked that a lot, why we haven't been swept. I don't know the answer to that except I know that our guys show up to the ballpark expecting to win, whether we lost the last couple or won the last couple. I think it's a pretty consistent mindset. The next day starting pitcher always helps.

But, yeah, our guys like to play. They let -- even in the tough years, I felt like we didn't come to the ballpark the next day with the attitude of a carry over. I think our group has done a great job of not carrying over to the next day, and that's possibly the reason why.

Q. Adley just said it earlier, he said the guys in this clubhouse care about each other. And different guys have said that along the way. How does that happen from your point of view and what is the value of that in this game?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, well, for me it's a huge deal, just because you're living together for six months and you're in such close quarters, and you're fighting together on a nightly basis.

How does it happen? I think you create -- I think it started a long time ago. We created a pretty good clubhouse culture in some really lean years. And like I said a ton, you couldn't walk into our clubhouse two or three or four years ago and feel there it a hundred loss team, but there was actually a genuine positivity that was going on. Some of those core guys are still here. I think we carried that into this year.

I thought we got helped last year by a few veteran guys that hated to lose in Robbie Chirinos, and Rougie and Jordan Lyles. That started last year for me, where we started expecting to win. And then you get a little bit younger, you get more talented with Adley and Gunnar who are ultra-competitors, and they meshed extremely well.

And the veteran guys we have on this team this year, have done the same thing where it's awesome leadership, take care of each other, team first attitude. And it's genuinely a really selfless group that enjoy playing pool together after games or doing things on off-days. And that's when you have a true team. And that's what this team has become.