AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS VS ORIOLES

October 10, 2023

Brandon Hyde

Globe Life Field

Baltimore Orioles

Postgame 3 Press Conference

Texas 7, Baltimore 1

Q. Brandon, what did you see out of Dean in the start tonight?

BRANDON HYDE: Just a tough time, kind of like Grayson, tough time putting guys away. You know, after the intentional walk there, got ahead of Garver, kind of made a change-up that got too much of the plate in an advantage count. Same thing with the homer to Garcia. Two strikes, trying to elevate, and didn't get it up there enough.

Something we need to work on as a pitching staff going into Spring Training next year, making more competitive pitches with two strikes. We got hurt a lot on that. The Seager homer, a change-up he pulled. Just tough time putting guys away there.

Q. What made Eovaldi hard to hit today?

BRANDON HYDE: It's the same guy we've seen. He's kind of had a weird season, injury plagued a little bit and came off, scuffled a little bit. That's what he did at Tampa his last time out too. He's done it to us before. The split's really good. Doesn't throw as hard as he did, but it's rushing up there, 96, 97. Cutter. Playoff pitcher.

Q. Brandon, a lot to process. Probably not the outcome of the series you wanted. As you look back, will you consider this season a success?

BRANDON HYDE: How can I not? We were supposed to win 76 games. Won 101, won the American League East. Really proud of our group. They defied all the odds. Nobody gave us a chance. These guys played their butts off for six months. We just didn't play well for these last three, unfortunately. And it's definitely a successful season and these guys are going to be really good going forward.

Q. Brandon, do you get a sense, the three games because it's a playoffs and not the regular season, as to why they didn't play as well. Or is it just came because that's the way baseball can work.

BRANDON HYDE: We lost 3-2 in the first game and a couple really short starts in Games 2 and 3. It's tough to win when a starter goes an inning-plus. Try to piece it together.

Game 2, Eovaldi had complete control, which he's done before and against us again tonight. We didn't have many base runners. Didn't do much against them.

Q. Brandon, I didn't see what you were doing after the game ended. A bunch of players were sitting on the rail watching the Texas celebration and seemed to be taking it in.

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah.

Q. Is there something to that, in taking, you know, obviously, the disappointment of this moment and spinning it forward?

BRANDON HYDE: We have a lot of guy who have never been to the postseason before. So this hurts, and it's okay to hurt. It's okay to have this kind of fuel your fire in the off-season. It's going to take a while for us to get over this a little bit. But I think our guys will come in hunting and hungry in Spring Training. The guys coming back, especially the young guys, know what this feels like, knowing what it tastes like, and it sucks. If they did soak it in a little bit, they're going to be better for it down the road.

Q. Brandon, you were asked a lot about experience going into the playoffs, how young your team was. I know it just ended, but do you think experience was a factor in this, considering they have quite a bit and your guys --

BRANDON HYDE: I'm sure it's helpful. And now we have experience. This team going forward, heads up. It's going to be a really good club.

Q. To kind of build on that, what do you think your players know now about the difference between playoff baseball and regular season baseball that they couldn't have known a week ago?

BRANDON HYDE: I'm not really sure. Offensively, we weren't at our best the last two, three weeks of the season. That carried into the postseason where we had guys scuffling. These guys won two games in Tampa, extremely well pitched. They rolled in with a ton of momentum. I don't think we rolled in with a ton of momentum offensively.

They battled and they fought. We just came out short. Whatever they take out of it, they take out of it. I'm glad they got the experience. I hate the outcome because these guys deserve all the credit in the world for the season they just had. I hope people can recognize that.

Q. It's near short-term, but the five days off and hitting and timing, anything you learned or anything you second guess?

BRANDON HYDE: I don't second guess how we handled it. I think we handled it appropriately and I think we did everything we could during those five days. We were pretty beat up at the end of the regular season, and so I felt like guys needed a few days off.

Like I said, I don't think we need five, but we did need a few. Whether that affected us this series or not, I'm not going to speculate. But it's a long time off. That's the bottom line.

Q. Very bright spot, though, Gunnar Henderson's effort in this, going 6 for 12, constantly battling, delivering. He certainly seemed ready for the moment. What does that mean to you?

BRANDON HYDE: He's going to be a bright spot in this league for a long time. He's going to be a special player and he had a really nice series, and he's an ultra competitor. He never gives in, plays so hard. Plays to win. He's going to be -- he's an All Star player.

Q. Coming in, you mentioned Texas had been swinging the bats pretty well. Did you see anything in their lineup that you thought maybe you could exploit? Are they just hitting too well right now?

BRANDON HYDE: That's just a really good offense. We knew we were going to have to kind of outscore them a little bit because we knew they were going to score runs. And it's a really balanced offense. They have speed. They have power. They have two guys up the middle that are All Star players that did a great job of signing. Catcher switch hits.

It's a really balanced offensive club that scores a lot of runs and was second in the league in offense this year. And for a reason. So we knew we were going to have to score runs. We just scored a little bit the second game. First and third game, had a tough time.

Thank you very much.