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NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS VS METS

October 12, 2015

Curtis Granderson

Flushing, New York - Postgame three

THE MODERATOR: Curtis, congratulations on a big night. First question for Curtis.

Q. Curtis, after your hit, you went motioned to the dugout and went like this, what was that about?
CURTIS GRANDERSON: Kirk Nieuwenhuis and I have just been joking around about spoken word and poetry slams, if you ever attend them, the way you clap, you clap like this. So it's just been something that we've been doing, joking around about the quiet, calm way to cheer for somebody. And unfortunately, he was actually inside, in the cage, so I didn't get a chance to find him when I was making the gesture to him. But that's all it was. It was just the "spoken word clap" as we call it.

Q. On the other end of the spectrum of quiet applause, what do you think it's going to be like here tomorrow night?
CURTIS GRANDERSON: Very similar to tonight. You expect coming in what you think it's going to be like, a packed house, first postseason game in Citi Field history, and then they start announcing guys and it gets louder and louder. And obviously Ruben's name was announced, the roar from it I think even exceeded my expectations in terms of the energy and the entire fanbase just coming together to show their support for him and everything he's been through. Prior to what has happened, his career, on the field for us, it was absolutely amazing just to see the support for him.

Q. In terms of the retaliation, you guys all said, the best thing we could do is hit a lot of baseballs, score a lot of runs, shut 'em down, check, check, check. So what is the satisfaction level in that room tonight?
CURTIS GRANDERSON: Anytime you can win a game it's obviously going to be big for you. The big thing from the day before is we ended up losing that game. So any retaliation, anything you can do out there doesn't change that. And that's the way you have to look at it. We ended up coming into today 1-1. Anything we happened to do or anything that anyone recommends that we do doesn't change that except for going out there to win the ballgame.

So that was the main focus and the main objective across the board, pitch the baseball, field the baseball, hit the baseball, and hopefully we'll do enough to be victorious at the end of the game.

Q. Can you talk about the opportunity of wrapping it up at home tomorrow and also facing Kershaw for the second time in four or five days. How tough is that?
CURTIS GRANDERSON: Anytime you face Kershaw it's going to be tough. We saw the last time he pitched here earlier this year he was no hit, if not perfect through about seven innings. So that's the type of stuff he brings.

Regardless of what anyone says in terms of coming out on a short rest or going out after the last outing that's Clayton Kershaw. He's one of the best pitchers in the game. It's not going to be easy for us out there. We didn't have a ton of success of him against him then. I don't think any team has. It doesn't get any easier. If we do happen to get in a situation to win it here at home, it'll be great, but we gotta take it one pitch at a time and he's going to be out there battling and not looking to give in.

Q. You guys have had ten of these double-digit outbursts. Can you speak to how far this group has come in a short time?
CURTIS GRANDERSON: The big thing is continuing to believe in each other. We understand the ability that's there. It's just a matter of being able to execute it when you want to. And understanding that the effort level continues to remain high.

At the same time give credit where credit's due. The opposition in this league pitches the baseball with the best of them. It's not necessarily easy to go out there and score runs and score runs in bunches, like you were able to do tonight. When you do it, you're obviously grateful for it and hopefully you can feed off of it. At the same time, you got a guy like a Kershaw coming in who's known as a stopper for a reason, who's known as the ace for a reason. To go out there and do things like that against him are highly unlikely, as we've seen in the games we've faced up to this point.

But you try to put yourself and stay confident. If you get a few mistakes over the course of the game, try to take advantage of them to be able to get as many runs as possible to come across, which might not be that many tomorrow.

Q. Did you think the ball you hit off the wall had a chance to go out? And how important was that given the way the game started just to get that hit?
CURTIS GRANDERSON: The big thing prior to it is we ended up giving three runs up in the top of the second. I added to that with the error at third base, which brought the third run across, and we come back in the bottom of the second inning and, hey, let's get guys on base. It's not over with. It's only the second inning. We have a lot of stuff to do.

The guys ahead of me ended up getting on base, and the way they went out and continued to keep their heads held high. Just take it at-bat to at-bat and just looking for a pitch to drive. My first at-bat I didn't have a ton of success against Anderson there. I didn't see him that well. But the second time around, hopefully get a ball up in the zone, where you can do something with it. When I hit it, I knew I hit it but definitely not that good. I knew it was toward the center of the field and KikÃ© out there is pretty fast out there in center field. So I was just hoping it got down and got the ground and ended up hitting the wall, which is a good thing for us.

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