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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: CUBS VS METS

October 17, 2015

Joe Maddon

Flushing, New York - Postgame one

Mets - 4 Cubs - 2

Q. Can you give us your assessment of your team's play and how they handled the big stage and everything tonight?
JOE MADDON: Beautifully. If Harvey wasn't pitching, it would have looked a lot better. He was outstanding tonight. Give him credit, because he had about as good of command as you possibly can of all his pitches. His stuff is always good, but the command was outrageous tonight. Therein lies the game, because Jon pitched well, too.

I thought we were fine, absolutely fine. I just think that he was absolutely on top of his game tonight.

Q. Could you go over the play at the plate, Castro's slide, and the tag, and how that all evolved?
JOE MADDON: Yeah, I mean, it was a good throw. Cespedes can throw. He made a great throw on that particular play. Just trying to avoid the play and he was unable to.

That was just a good throw on their part. You could say possibly not send the runner, but we did, and it was just a good baseball play on their part. Rossy coming up, there's different things you could possibly do, but Jonesy's has been aggressive all year. He's been a great third base coach all year and I never second-guess him.

Q. On the other play to the plate, the sacrifice fly by Granderson, the catcher was set up well behind home plate. It seems like Schwarber's throw may have been in time. Is that where you want the catcher on that play?
JOE MADDON: Well, he felt like he had to be there because of the throw and how it was going to bounce. No, I mean, I'm all for the catcher getting in the front edge of the front corner of the plate and taking the plate away from the baserunner. I'm all for that. But I just think the throw took him there more than anything. It wasn't like he wanted to catch it there. The throw took him there. In order for him to catch the ball at all, that's how he explained it to me, and that's what I saw from the side.

Q. What was your impression of the first inning when Harvey comes out, he's throwing secondary stuff right away?
JOE MADDON: Well, pretty much indicated what he wanted to do, but then again, he had to execute. That's what I'm talking about. It's not easy to throw under those circumstances that many off-speed pitches that well with that kind of command. I mean, the changeup was outstanding, curveball was there. Heck, he didn't throw that many fastballs all night, and if he did, he didn't want to throw it for a strike. He was just all over the other stuff, and you don't see that very often. You've got to give him credit.

Q. How big do you think it is just to be able to go in and know you have Jake going tomorrow? Just given a young team, new to the stage, with the kind of second half that he's had?
JOE MADDON: Well, of course it's a nice situation to be in having him come back. Listen, honestly, our guys were fine tonight. Our guys were really good. Sometimes you have to give credit to the other guy pitching, and he was really that good tonight. You saw it, I saw it from the side.

Conversely tomorrow -- they also have another good pitcher going tomorrow. They're very good tomorrow, too. We just have to be able to generate some offense against their pitching. It is that good. We knew that coming in. We have Jake pitching tomorrow; they know how good he is. I would anticipate another really well-pitched game on both sides. From our players' perspective, we feel good about whoever's pitching for us, honestly we do.

Jake has had a wonderful season. You do feel, I mean from my perspective, putting that name on the lineup card is always a fun thing to do. But if you talk to any of our guys, we feel good about anybody going out to the mound, but it's nice to have Jake tomorrow.

Q. The Mets have talked a little bit about how they feel Daniel Murphy has changed as a hitter, even over the course of this season. What do you see with him and his ability now and the streak that he's on?
JOE MADDON: I just haven't seen him enough. I have not seen the National League enough to know. I know he's a really good hitter. He's definitely pulling the ball right now for power, although he did go left-central the other night against the Dodgers, I believe.

He's just a good hitter. He knows what he's doing at the plate. I think he definitely is premeditated what he'd like to do. He's very good about not missing his pitch when he sees it. I know the ball has to look like at least a softball right now, at least, maybe more to the beach ball variety. He's seeing everything that well. He's a good hitter that is seeing the ball really well right now, and you have to make good pitches to get him out.

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