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AL WILDCARD GAME: ORIOLES VS BLUE JAYSOctober 4, 2016Buck ShowalterToronto, Ontario: Game Day Toronto 5 - Baltimore 2 Q. Buck, was everything okay with Zach Britton? If so, why was he not used? BUCK SHOWALTER: He was fine. He was fine. Q. Did you consider using him at any point? BUCK SHOWALTER: Yeah, I considered a lot of things during the course of the game, but our guys did a good job getting us to that point. We just couldn't finish it off. Yeah, he was available. Q. I guess is it the philosophical thing of not wanting to use your closer in a tie game on the road? BUCK SHOWALTER: No, same thing, eighth inning, ninth inning, I liked the job that Darren could do, I liked the job that Brad could do, I liked the job that Michael could do, I liked the job that Duensing could do. It looked like it was going to be one of those that was more than one inning. Nobody has been pitching better for us than Ubaldo, too. So there's a lot of different ways to look at it, so that's the way we went. It didn't work out. Has nothing to do with philosophical. Q. Buck, you talked a whole lot about this format of the whole Wild Card game. How tough is it to lose so suddenly like that? BUCK SHOWALTER: You know, it's the risk you take any time you put yourself in -- it's a good position to be in the playoffs, but you know it's because you haven't won your division that there's this potential for this. So that's tough. But you know the description going in, what you're going to have to do and not do. There's so many different things that go on. You can use Zach Britton in the seventh and eighth inning and not have anybody to pitch the last inning. So there's a lot of risk taken every inning, every pitch. You take that on when you get in this format. Q. Buck, with the season on the line, do you regret not having your best relief pitcher in the game at all and leaving him on the bench? BUCK SHOWALTER: You could do afterwards, yeah. But we went for about four innings there trying to get to that spot. It looked like if he pitches a couple innings, if he can physically, then you're assuming, which is a pretty good assumption with the way he's pitched this year -- no, playing on the road has a little something to do with it, too. But we have some good options that have done a great job for us all year, and Zach's one of those. Q. Even with runners on first and third there and Zach's ground ball rate and you guys needing a double play, was there anything that crossed your mind about bringing him in there instead of Ubaldo? BUCK SHOWALTER: Sure, it crosses your mind from about the sixth inning on. So there's a bunch of decisions to make there during the course of the game. Our pitchers pitched real well the whole game to hold that club to two runs at that point. You could make a case, probably other than Zach, Ubaldo is pitching better than anybody we've had for the last six or seven starts. Those are a lot of tough decisions, but we're maybe a little different if you're playing at home. There's a lot of different ways to look at it. If we didn't have so many good options down there and we wanted to have a strong Zach and have him there in case the game goes extra innings. There's so much more to that game. But I know the world that you have to live in. So I respect that. Q. Buck, how disappointed were you to see the projectile thrown at Kim, and what came of your discussion with the umpires about that? BUCK SHOWALTER: Disappointing. People have a different way of handling their emotions. I don't like it. Nobody likes it. I'm sure the Toronto Blue Jays don't like it. It's tough when you have that many people in the ballpark and one person does something that reflects poorly on all of them. It can happen in any ballpark. I don't like anything that puts our guys in harm's way, just like Gibby wouldn't at our place. It's just unfortunate that, for a lot of different reasons, people lose some good decision making when they get overemotional. Thank goodness the ball players don't do that as often. Q. [ No microphone ]. BUCK SHOWALTER: Well, it seemed like it would be pretty easy to identify who it was. It came out of the first deck there. There's a lot of -- just wanted to feel comfortable they were going to identify it first and get them out of there. We're fortunate and lucky that somebody didn't get hit. But unfortunately, things like this happen in a game that -- I don't want to get into reflecting on mentality and all that stuff. Unfortunately, if you think about all the emotional games and stuff that are played around our country, it only happens very seldom. So I just feel fortunate nobody got hurt, and I'm sure Toronto identified that, and if anything else, it will make it a little better on future home games. I know they're trying to do a good job with it. Sometimes it's -- unless you want to have 50,000 police up here and everybody assigned one person, it's got a chance to happen. Q. In the 11th with the runner on first and third and Edwin up, when you went to the mound, was there discussion about putting Edwin on to get the force at home? BUCK SHOWALTER: No, we didn't discuss it there. I don't want them to -- we talked about depths and what we're going to do with the baseball and what have you. I really didn't want to box Ubaldo into having -- it's more about depth of infield and what we're going to do with the ball with a couple options, which way it might take us. Q. I'm sorry to harp on this -- BUCK SHOWALTER: Are you really? Q. Well, I just don't understand it. BUCK SHOWALTER: We can talk about it privately. I'll let you know everything I'm thinking. I understand you've got to ask your question. It's okay. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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