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AL DIVISION SERIES: BLUE JAYS VS RANGERS

October 6, 2016

Jeff Banister

Arlington, Texas - Postgame one

TORONTO - 10, TEXAS - 1

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jeff Banister.

Q. How unexpected was this, what happened today?
JEFF BANISTER: I mean, obviously when you get your No. 1 guy out there, you don't really envision that.

Combination of a couple of things. Just their approach, pretty solid approach against Hamels. And then after the line drive off of Beltre's glove looked like he got in to trying to make a better pitch.

And then the ball back at him, obviously was a reaction play. They're always going to react. If it gets through there, we're probably out of the inning. If he catches it we're out of the inning. However it didn't work out that way.

And the Tulowitzki ball, a long way to run. We're playing him to pull but solid approach. He drove the ball in the right-center gap and not real sure of the relationship with Desi and the wall, but we've seen him make that catch. And it would have been a great catch. We just didn't come up with it.

Q. You did see Hamels struggle in September, he had an ERA over 5. Were there things you say today early that said, I just saw this in September?
JEFF BANISTER: The challenge for me is the first two innings he came out and was in control, control of all three of his -- the fastball, the cutter, the sinker and the 4-seamer. And then it did seem to get away from him. And still one pitch away from being out of that inning.

I think the big blow was a triple. But to say that they're comparable, I'm not sure I'll go that far. But, look, this is a big-game pitcher and has been. And you've got to trust that he's going to figure it out. Just not a day for him.

I'm not going to say that's how we drew it up for Game 1. However, it's one game.

Q. Did Ian say that he thought he was going to hit the wall? Is that why he pulled up?
JEFF BANISTER: Well, look, I haven't talked to Ian about that play. As a coach in these type of situations you don't run down and ask a guy what happened on the field. Look, and I'm not going to assume what the situation is. We'll go back and look at the video. We'll communicate with him. And we just didn't make a play. Bottom line.

We'd be talking about how great a play it was if he made the catch.

Q. Do you worry about any residue effect from this loss, the way it happened?
JEFF BANISTER: Given how our club has played all year long, and we've been in these type of situations before, look, we've come back and played well after these type of games. And with the veteran group that we have in there, I don't worry about the collateral damage in a game like this.

Obviously we would have liked to have played a lot more competitively. But the other thing that you've got to look at, too, is Estrada threw a heck of a game.

You have to give him a little bit of credit with how he pitched, the ability to throw the changeup at any time at any count, solid changeup today. Mixing fastballs in and out, up and down, and then just enough breaking balls to keep us off balance.

But I mean that's -- I mean he had the great day. We didn't have the day we were looking for from our side. But no, I don't feel there will be any collateral damage, no.

Q. One thing that seems to stand out with Cole was I think five hits were with two strikes on him, and there seemed to be a lot of foul balls off him. I was wondering if his swing-and-miss pitches just weren't quite there, where you would normally want them?
JEFF BANISTER: Again, I think I referenced also that their approach against Cole seem to be pretty solid. They didn't look to be trying to pull anything off of him.

I think the two balls that got pulled were the home run and the Donaldson ball. And you're right, there were some two-strike pitches that didn't get put forward or didn't get missed. Now, whether that's the swing-and-miss stuff or whether it's just their approach, we'll look at it.

But sometimes you gotta credit where it's necessary. And so I just feel like Cole made pitches, got in a situation there in, what was it, the third inning that got away from him. He had two outs.

We don't make the play back up the middle off his glove, and then the big blow there was the triple by Tulo. The pitch looked like to be up and out over. And a situation where he looked like he was trying to throw a cutter in and it looked like the cutter stayed out over the plate and Tulo put a good swing on it.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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