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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: CUBS VS METSOctober 20, 2015Jacob deGromDaniel MurphyDavid WrightChicago, Illinois - Postgame three Chicago Cubs - 2 - New York Mets - 5 Q. Maybe just a couple of you could address being up 3-0 in this series, just how good you're feeling at the position you're in? DAVID WRIGHT: I think we'll feel better after another win, that's for sure. I think the last thing we could start doing is thinking beyond tomorrow. Tomorrow's the most important game, and hopefully we can close it out tomorrow. But this is an excellent team, and we're playing good baseball. So the last thing you want to start doing is thinking about beyond tomorrow and all of a sudden you lose focus at the task at hand. Q. Daniel, you're obviously on a tremendous hot streak. Is this something you think about or do you just go out and do what you've been doing? DANIEL MURPHY: I try not to think about it too much. Just one of those things where you feel good in there, try not to think about it too much. I've said this before, but you see what David did tonight and the way he swung the bat, and then the way Ces is swinging the bat behind me. I'm in the best spot in the lineup you could possibly be in, in between those two guys right now. David's on in front of me, Ces is really dangerous behind me, so it's a really nice spot to be in. Q. Murph and maybe David, Terry just said guys are sitting in the dugout watching this performance you're having in the postseason and they're saying, who is this guy? Who are you, and what's happened and the metamorphosis of Cespedes. He did that with the A's, made everybody better. What is happening to you that's turned you into a home run hitter? DANIEL MURPHY: I don't know. I wish I could explain it; I would have done it like six years ago. I can't explain it. I can only thank Kevin Long and Pat Roessler for the work that they've put in with not only myself but with all the guys hitting. I wish I could explain it; I can't. But I think this is just a lot of fun right now. Again, like I said, in between David and Yoenis Cespedes right now I think is the best place to be. Q. David or Daniel? DAVID WRIGHT: What is it now? I'm sorry. Q. (Inaudible)? DAVID WRIGHT: It's ridiculous. We were talking in the dugout and being here in Chicago, should have given the shoulder shrug to Jordan after that last one. It's fun to watch. Being a hitter, I understand how difficult it is to do what he's doing, to continue this hot streak for ten days or whatever it's been. I mean, it's impressive doing it off these pitchers. It's fun to watch. Q. Terry was talking about some of the smaller plays you guys made tagging up on the ball and take advantage of mistakes. Do you think you've developed a killer instinct down the stretch with the confidence you've built? DAVID WRIGHT: Yeah, I think that we can't solely rely on hitting home runs to score runs. Once you get ahead of a team, I think you have to continue to put your foot on the gas and do those small things, try to steal some bases. I think that's excellent game planning by our coaching staff coming into the playoffs and letting us try to run wild on the basepaths. Under control, but if we get a lead early, to continue to put your foot on the gas and try to go. You can be aggressive, and you can be a little reckless on the basepaths when you have that lead, and I think that's a good position to be in. DANIEL MURPHY: Yeah, I think like David said, Goody and even Kevin Long have been mentioning each time we talk to them to really try to keep pressure as much as we can on them. The basepaths seems to be one of the biggest places we've been able to do it. I think as an offense, it's also a testament to how much traffic we've been able to put out there. We've had really good at-bats. We've been able to have traffic on the basepaths, starting with Grandy. He was on there again tonight to lead the game off. I know even though he got thrown out, we're still trying to put pressure on him. Q. Along those lines, guys, Terry made mention to the fact that you guys talked about running the bases more as this series began. Can you just talk about that meeting? DAVID WRIGHT: I think it's just we understand that, set aside what Murph is doing right now with hitting all the home runs, that normally in the postseason you try to play small ball. You try to play for that one run, play for those two runs, especially with our pitching staff. So I think it was important early on, not just this series, but when the postseason started that we had to be a better base running team because that could be the difference between winning a postseason game and losing a postseason game. You saw early on in the Dodgers series, guys trying to steal bases, guys trying to take an extra base, applying pressure to the defense and making them make a play to get us out I think was kind of our mantra going into the playoffs and we want to continue to do that. Q. How do you guys remain confident but not cocky during this incredible run? DANIEL MURPHY: Jacob? JACOB deGROM: I don't know. DAVID WRIGHT: What was the question again? Q. How do you remain confident but at the same time not cocky as you're rolling here? DAVID WRIGHT: Because we understand just like we've won the first three games, these guys can win the next three games very easily. This is an excellent team, and you give them room to win a game or streak along a couple good innings, and they're going to get all the confidence in the world and expect to beat us three in a row. So it's as simple as that. You can't look past tomorrow. You have to continue to put your foot on the gas and try to play good baseball and take advantage of the type of baseball that we're playing and the type of pitching that we're getting. It starts with our starting pitching. As you saw tonight, just like the closeout game in L.A., Jake probably didn't have his best stuff, his best command, his best fastball. But he found a way to win, and that is the biggest compliment you can give a starting pitcher is when they don't have their best stuff, they figure out a way to give you seven innings of two-run ball. That's, like I said, a tremendous compliment. Q. Do you guys feel confident coming in when you haven't won a game here the entire preseason, regular season, do you feel confident coming in that we're at least going to win a couple games? Then for Murph, how much money do you think you've made yourself this off-season? DANIEL MURPHY: Well, I'll answer the second one first. That's an off-season question, and fortunately right now four teams don't have to answer off-season questions. The first question, I think, that we have a different ballclub right now than we did when we came here earlier. I thought the organization did a great job adding not only great baseball players but great character guys in Tyler Clippard and Cespedes, Addison Reed. DAVID WRIGHT: Kelly Johnson. DANIEL MURPHY: Juan Uribe, thank you. I think that we're a different ballclub. That's also a really good club over there. I think our motto kind of right now is tomorrow is a must win. That's the way we're approaching it, and that's the way we're going to keep trying to play. Q. I think in all three of your starts in the first two innings, your pitch count was pretty high. I think it was up in the 40s, and every time you've bounced back to go further than even your manager thought. Other teams are thinking they have a shot against you and then they don't. What is it that it's taken you to settle in a little bit in these games? JACOB deGROM: I don't know why the first inning has been so tough for me. The last thing I want to do -- like I said before, when our guys go out there and put up a run is to give it right back up, and I've done that the past few times. I think I talked to Travis and I noticed that they were hitting the fastball pretty well. So I said, hey, let's try to throw some off speed up there early on and see if we can get early contact, and that ended up working for me. Q. I actually wanted to ask you if you would have any words for Matz tomorrow with a chance to pitch for the sweep, and just what you might say to him, if anything, about pitching tomorrow? JACOB deGROM: I haven't said anything to him yet, but if I said anything, I would say go out there and stick with his game plan. Not try to do too much, keep it simple and just try to keep the ball down in the zone and get early outs. Q. What was your read in the 7th inning on the ball that was hit to left field? Then, I assume with one out, that was a contact play from third? But sort of what you saw in it, because you were past second base by the time or close to it? DANIEL MURPHY: Yeah, it was a play with Kyle out there that I thought he obviously was going back on, so I felt like I could get a little bit farther. Ces hit it really good. So even if he makes the play, I felt like I was going to be able to get back. If he doesn't make the play, you'd really like to get to third base with less than one out. The contact play, which it was, was all T.C. So that right there -- Lucas is up, does a great job putting that ball in play right there against Grimm who's got really good stuff. And like on that contact play, T.C. -- and fortunately I was able to make it in there safe for an extra run. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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