NL WILDCARD GAME: PHILLIES VS BRAVES

September 28, 2026

JT Realmuto

Truist Park

Philadelphia Phillies

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. The last two weeks you've been part of watching la czar work behind the scenes. In your mind when a guy is injured, there's probably some doubt. Is there any doubt in your mind that he's going to be able to make it back.

JT REALMUTO: Initially, definitely. I think first couple days, you never know how stuff like that's going to go. Even the player doesn't necessarily know the first day or two how it feels.

But I think after probably three or four days, once he started reporting, like he was telling us in the clubhouse, he was feeling better. He was getting better pretty quickly.

I started to have a lot of confidence that he was going to be ready to do come postseason time.

Q. Don said the other day when they canceled that sim game, facing live hitters, he's like, I just had to listen to what everybody said about him going out there and facing live hitters. Were you part of those conversations, and did you think if we pitch him on Sunday in a big spot he'd be able to do what he did?

JT REALMUTO: No, I was not a part of those conversations. But I feel like this time of year, and I'm assuming 'Sus would say the same, like he's a competitor, and he's pitched a full season.

I don't think 10 days off is necessarily long enough to throw him out of whack. I had a lot of confidence in him coming in yesterday, have confidence in him going into the postseason.

It was more for me less about him coming off the IL is he had never been out of the bullpen before that I know of and hadn't seen him work in that capacity, and that can be a lot different for starting pitchers. It was definitely encouraging to see how well he threw coming into that spot.

Q. It was only four pitches; did the stuff look like it's supposed to look?

JT REALMUTO: It's funny, we were watching -- I don't know if you guys got to talk to him about it or not, but he was throwing in the bullpen. I was watching, in the cage getting ready for my next at-bat watching his bullpen, and he didn't throw a single strike. Like we were actually talking in the cage as hitters, like how are we going to get through this 'Sus hasn't thrown a strike yet and he's warming up. Then he was also rusty on the mound when he was warming up, and then he came out and threw a four-itch inning, so I guess that's how the game works. His stuff looked good. To be honest, once the third hitter came up, I wanted to call an 0-0 sweeper just to get one in there and see how it looked, but I was like, there's no way this guy gets out in one pitch too so we'll get ahead with a sinker and then go ahead with the sweeper, and we ended up not needing the sweeper which was unfortunate he didn't get to throw that pitch, but his stuff looked good.

Q. (Indiscernible) Triple-A now he might factor into the pitching plans. What do you is most impressive about his turnaround?

JT REALMUTO: He's just grown so much this year. I think there was so much expectation on him coming into the year and a lot of pressure. I just think the way he's handled it, he's matured throughout the year. Obviously he's always had great stuff. I think his command has gotten a lot better. His stuff has gotten better. Just his overall growth has been really impressive to see out of a kid his age that struggled early on, and that's not -- especially in this market with this team with these expectations, that's not easy to handle.

I thought the way he handled it was very impressive given his age.

Q. When you face the Braves, you guys pretty much know as much as you can about each other. How much of a chess match is about playing to your strengths, attacking their weaknesses? It might change series to series, but how when you're so familiar with each other, how does that work?

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, it's definitely different playing a team that we know so well and they know us so well. Their hitters have a lot of at-bats off of our arms, as do we against their guys. There's almost -- feels like there's a little more of the cat-and-mouse game of we can't do the same things we've done all season. Even if they've worked, there's times you've got to go away from things.

Obviously I'm not going to dive too much into that, but there's definitely more of a cat-and-mouse game when you've played teams this much and had this many at-bats against guys.

Q. That's something you consider; you do a lot of prep work. You have to consider the familiarity aspect now?

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, absolutely. Saying that, in my opinion, the more at-bats hitters get off of a pitcher, the better they get, just because they've seen it more. They've seen the stuff more. And we feel the same way. We've faced their arms a lot. I think you get more and more comfortable the more you see guys. As a pitching staff, we have to -- I don't want to say do things differently, but we have to be aware of that and know that sometimes you've got to go against the grain a little bit just to show them a different look.

Q. Generally speaking in a situation like that, when you've faced a guy a bunch, how different is it for you as a hitter where you come back to the dugout, like I can't believe that he just pitched me that way, or is it just more like little tinier differences?

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, I think the difference is it's less about -- kind of every pitcher is different, but we're just -- each pitcher looks different every day, so their stuff looks different. They're not the same guy every single day. Sometimes a breaking ball is sharper. Sometimes their fast ball is playing up a little bit. Nowadays guys are dropping their arm slot in between starts, which is wild.

There's some of the cat and mouse of like, I can't believe he pitched me differently, but a lot of it's more, hey, this is what he looks like today, this is what his fast ball is playing like. He's locating it a little better or a little worse. It's more of that game than necessarily what pitches they're using against us.

Q. How do you think McFarland will handle pitching on this stage?

JT REALMUTO: I think he'll be great just like he has been all year. He's thrown the ball great for us. His stuff is good. Throws strikes.

I think I'm excited to see him get out there because he seems like he has the right demeanor. Situations don't seem to get too big for him, and he stays calm and collected.

Q. Talking about arm slot, before Luzardo went down, he was continually lowering his arm slot. Do you think that was helping him or making his sweeper better? What were you seeing?

JT REALMUTO: I think it helped him, yeah. I don't know the numbers or anything to back it up, but for me, it actually feels like his fastball got better. I think his four-seam fastball has played better. I don't know the numbers, so I could be off on that. But from what I'm seeing in the game, he was getting more -- he was beating right-handed hitters with his four-seam more, and it might have been just his location was better, he was hitting his spots better with it, but I feel like his fast ball played up when his arm slot lowered a little bit, and that just makes the sweeper that much better.

Q. Trevor was in here talking about how the postseason is a clean slate. For you as well, just getting out of that 0-fer yesterday, breathing a little bit and then getting here, does it help you breathe?

JT REALMUTO: Absolutely. A streak like that is never fun, and it's always -- it's a breath of fresh air when it finally ends. Getting that over with and getting into the postseason is the most important thing, and now we start new. Everybody is 0-0. Everybody has the same chance.

Q. We talked to Trae a little bit about ABS and how do you do it in the postseason versus regular season. Do you feel like there's any differences in how you have to handle it both at the plate and behind the plate?

JT REALMUTO: I think so, yeah. In my opinion you should handle it the same throughout the whole season because every game matters, but I think now we really have to strategize and use him correctly and use him in the right moments. Early in the game, runners not on, I feel like low-leverage situations, it's not -- you should be 100 percent if it's a low-leverage situation in my opinion early in the game.

Some of the first inning challenges, 1-0 counts, it's like, let's let those go and save them for when we might need them later in the game. With that being said, we have a lot of guys that know the strike zone really well. You've got to trust your eyes.

^ Jr but I think when you think it's an iffy call, it should be a high-leverage situation for those.

Q. Behind the plate, Don has talked, they really like the numbers when you're counting as a catcher, but maybe they wish you could be a little bit more aggressive with it. Is that something that you try to make an effort to do? How do you view that?

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, I'm definitely -- I'm going to try to be more aggressive. I think obviously it's still a learning curve. It's the first year doing it. There's different situations where I went to tap my head and I stopped myself because it wasn't a high-leverage situation, but I would have been correct. I'm just trying to get to trust myself a little more and not necessarily -- I know the zone pretty well, so if I think it's a strike, just challenge it, not think about the situation too much.

But then obviously I don't want to get crazy with it and start wasting challenges in spots that we don't need it.

Q. This is a dumb question, but how much easier is it to challenge as a catcher than as a hitter? Is it like 10 times as easy? Do you feel 10 times better, five times?

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, it's quite a bit easier, I think. Also, with time, I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the catching. I've challenged pitches in the last three weeks that I probably wouldn't have challenged in the first few months because I was still learning. Especially when guys miss locations it's not as easy as catcher when you're set up on one side and they miss all the way across the plate. Just like for an umpire, it's hard to tell where it crosses. So a lot of those early in the season I wouldn't challenge even if I thought it was a strike just because I was reaching so far.

But as it's gone, I've gotten more and more comfortable with where the strike zone is and been a little bit more aggressive on those.

I think it's definitely easier as a catcher, but getting more acclimated with it as a hitter too.

Q. Do you guys and the umpire and the hitter talk? Say you challenge a pitch and it's off. Say you see on the replay it's less than a tenth of an inch. Do you guys ever say anything?

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, the umpires get pissed -- when it gets overturned by less than a tenth of an inch, they do not like it. The system isn't perfect, right; there's some variance and there's some error there. When it's that small, they don't like it, that's for sure.

Q. Even if you miss one by a tenth of an inch or something like that, do you say anything like, I cannot believe --

JT REALMUTO: Yeah, there's been times where I thought -- a couple when I was hitting that I thought for sure were balls, and they just clipped. Mostly on like the inner half of the plate because I feel like breaking balls from a righty that are coming in, now that the plate is back a little bit, it's not the front of the plate, they catch the zone, which that took a little getting used to. When it was at the front of the plate, it went around, but now that it's a little further back, it's actually catching the corner. Those are the ones that were really tough at first to get a gauge where the actual edges of the plate were.

Q. You talked before about playoff games being more exhausting in the pitch clock era. Does the ABS system add to that mentality?

JT REALMUTO: That's an interesting question. I think it could. To be honest, I don't -- at least the way I view ABS, I'm more reactionary to it. I'm not necessarily thinking the whole time. I'll know the leverage of the situation, but I'm not overthinking the ABS. I try to just react to it and take it when it comes. I don't think it's necessarily going to make the game too much more stressful.

I do think it's going to help us a lot get the calls right more often and not have the emotions of like, oh, the umpire missed this call and it changed the entire game. I think that aspect is going to be really good.