NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS VS PHILLIES

October 9, 2025

Alec Bohm

Bryson Stott

Dodger Stadium

Philadelphia Phillies

Pregame 4 Press Conference

Q. I know there was a lot of excitement about how the game went last night. How have you guys felt the vibe in the clubhouse about keeping the focus on one game at a time?

ALEC BOHM: It's one game, win or go home. So nobody's really worried about yesterday or tomorrow. It's just come do our job today and play a game.

Q. For both of you guys, Bryson, I know you've made the playoffs every year you've been in the majors. Alec, you've been in the playoffs almost every season. Do you ever take a step back and maybe appreciate the opportunities you've gotten so early in your career to play so often in October?

BRYSON STOTT: For me, yeah. Obviously you play with guys who played nine, 10 years and never make the playoffs. I always remember J.T. saying, I waited nine years for this and you do it in your first seven months.

You never take it for granted, and obviously you want to finish the job. But at some point you do look back, and you're, like, we made strides, we made the playoffs and things like that. But obviously the ultimate goal is to win a World Series.

Q. When Schwarber hit that home run in the fourth inning to tie the game, still a lot of game to be played. But what did it do for you guys? Seemed like it lifted a huge weight off your shoulders.

ALEC BOHM: Yeah, I think obviously that's kind of pretty typical with us. Schwarber is usually the guy that pops a big homer to kind of give us a lead or get us going, whatever it might be.

I think, yeah, in that scenario, I think that kind of made the hitting get contagious a little bit. And then we started to string some things together and have good at-bats and just kind of keep the pressure on.

Q. What did it say about Nola, I guess, that he bought into that plan yesterday, given what he's accomplished, to just kind of be the opener and hand it off to Ranger?

BRYSON STOTT: That's Aaron Nola in a nutshell. He wants to win. And the ultimate team player, and he'll do anything that's asked of him. If that's one out, if it's three outs, if it's six innings, he's just all the way bought in, and you'll never hear a peep from him. So that was huge yesterday.

Q. You mentioned J.T. Obviously the goal every year is to win the World Series. Does this year's run feel different at all for either of you guys, I guess, since you've got J.T. and Schwarber maybe becoming free agents, and you don't know what the future is going to be, Ranger too? Anything different than past runs, any urgency at all?

BRYSON STOTT: I think the urgency is always kind of there. Obviously you go into each year knowing that odds are the clubhouse is not going to look the exact same, no matter who it is, from different free agents year to year and guys that come in for one year and things like that.

But I think the urgency is always there. And those are two big pieces for us. Just having those guys around and focusing on today and winning today and going from there.

Q. This team's been resilient not only last night, this season, but the past few seasons. What are the qualities of the core that enable you guys to kind of bounce back when you hit adversity? What is it about you guys that enables you to respond most of the time?

ALEC BOHM: I think a little bit of it is just -- we're in the big leagues. Nobody really cares whether you're down five runs, six runs. I think our job is to just play the game, no matter the situation, the scenario -- down 0-2, down a series, a game, or whatever it is. We come to the park and we play the game.

We find ourselves down in the seventh inning, it's not looking forward to the next day or whatever it might be. We just keep playing the game.

I think up and down the lineup, we have a lot of pieces that can spark some big innings. And we also have some arms that can shut things down towards the end of the game, that can keep us in a game and give us a chance to come back.

So I think all that kind of just stems from just guys playing the game and doing their jobs and not really being so worried about the scoreboard or anything like that.

BRYSON STOTT: From my point of view, we have so many veterans and guys that have kind of seen everything and been through everything or know someone or played with someone that's been up 2-0 or down 0-2 or anything like that.

So being able to lean on them and listen to what they were going through back then and things like that when it's already happened to them is big. And I think experience is a big thing for our group.

Q. Bryce Harper has been saying the last couple of days how much you guys enjoy playing at Dodger Stadium, in Los Angeles. The fact that you played well out here three weeks ago, does that have any carry-over effect to what's going on here now?

ALEC BOHM: I think it could, it could not. But I think it's one of those things where there's not that little thing on your shoulder saying we don't play well here. So I don't think it is necessarily, like, oh, yeah, we know we dominate in Dodger -- I don't think that's a thing. But I do know that nobody's saying, oh, we don't play good here. So I think that's more so the lesser of two evils, maybe.

Q. Bryson, you said one of the reasons you guys are so resilient and confident is because you have so many veterans. Do you feel like a veteran now? Alec, do you feel like you're one of those guys? Because you've been in a lot of different situations, a lot of different scenarios.

BRYSON STOTT: We always joke about it. We'll go on the road in Spring Training and we'll say maybe next year, because there's still a lot of people with more time than us. But I think for me, just service time-wise, I don't put myself in that group yet.

Obviously I've been here now four years and I've played in a lot of big games and things like that. So I think just from the Kemps and the Wilsons and things like that, I think I have answers now, whereas, two, three years ago I was the one asking questions.

I'm still asking questions to Schwarber and Bryce and those guys. But just being able to have answers now, I think you kind of get that feeling a little bit.

But, like I said, there's just so many -- years and years. And I think D-Rob debuted when I was in seventh grade. So, we've got some catching up to do, for sure.

ALEC BOHM: We definitely have some big league experience, but in this clubhouse we're not the vets, for sure. It's also, like, I think we kind of -- there's times during the season where we kind of, I guess, observe, and, we have a team full of grown men.

There's not a lot of just like kids on the team. We've got just a lot of guys with a lot of experience. And I think for us two, coming up into the group we did, it's probably helped us a lot with just baseball experience, knowing how to just carry ourselves the right and wrong way on and off the field, doing all the things like that. So I think we're experienced but we're not the vets.

Q. Bryson, how do you rate Alec's leap last night as some of the other ones he's done. And also what it's been like to watch him come into his own at third base.

BRYSON STOTT: That was a huge play. Keeps a guy off second. I think I was jumping with him and trying to give him a little extra inches to the vertical.

But, yeah, just kind of watching and being there since 19 and 20 at the outside. And things like that, it just shows that when you want to do something and you buy into it and you don't listen to everybody on the outside and you just put your head down and do what you need to do, it's a walking testimony. It's pretty fun to watch him over there.

Q. Correct me if I'm wrong, the year you came up, you spent Spring Training training to platoon with him at third base and there were some injury issues -- I think you played short most of that year. And the assumption was, okay, well, you might be the third baseman of the future, there might be a platoon for a long time, see how it works. And he's played third base pretty much every day since then. Do you remember that time? And can you address how you've seen him like sort of grow defensively? There were projections he was going to play first at some point, but now he's a pretty good third baseman?

BRYSON STOTT: That was a weird Spring Training for me. It was all about making the team and things like that. And it was, you're going to play shortstop, you're going to be our shortstop if you hit and you defend in Spring Training. You've got to earn it.

And I think it was two days left to spring and they asked if I could play third. I was, like, I guess, I'll try. And that's just kind of how that came together.

We alternated the first couple. I think I only played two games there. But then moved over to short and then to second, when Seggy got hurt and then back to short.

It was never a "this is what we're going to do, this is how we're going to do it." It was just kind of getting us both into the games and into the lineup. And we had kind of a logjam in the infield in '22 and tried to make it work. Didn't really go how maybe they thought it was going to go at the start.

Then we both started playing. And watching him now at third is fun, like I said, and it's been a lot of growth.

Q. Alec, what were your thoughts in that Spring Training? And how satisfied, I guess, are you the way things evolved?

ALEC BOHM: Yeah, I mean, that year, just going into the season with kind of where we were, we kind of, I think, both got to point, all right, we're just going to get the match-ups that are most beneficial to us and we'll do the most we can with those. And try to, I guess, as two young players, kind of find our way in the big leagues and try to produce.

And I think baseball kind of happened. And we had a couple of injuries here and there. He bounced from third, short, second and was hitting all over the lineup.

And then fast-forward into the end of that year and we find ourselves playing third base and shortstop in the World Series. It was kind of, for us, just kind of developing, a pretty cool year.

But I think just kind of the season started and one thing after another kind of happened and just ended up the way it ended up.

Q. What has it been like to watch Kyle Schwarber's season up close? What do you learn from him when you watch him in the cage before the game?

ALEC BOHM: Kyle's just, I think, the biggest thing, I think, that I can take away from Kyle is how, like, he's never panicked or anything. If it's not going really well, his work is the same, his attitude is the same, just his personality is the same. And then you kind of just see him fall right back into being Kyle and hitting balls 118 miles an hour and doing all the things that he does.

I think for us, it's kind of just the way he goes about everything off the field and in the cage pregame, his routine and all that.

He's just got a very solid routine. He sticks to it. He doesn't waver from it. And I think that's something that a lot of young players kind of see and learn from.

BRYSON STOTT: Like he said, it's the same guy. If you asked me to just put a blindfold on and after the game ask what his stat line was, I literally couldn't tell you. I think that's big from a leader, and it's big from our guy that hit 56 home runs.

And he's the voice, and you kind of just -- he doesn't need to use his voice. Sometimes you just stare at him, know how to act and be a professional. I think outside of being a great hitter, he's an even better person. And I think that's big, especially from your leader.