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MLB WORLD SERIES: CUBS VS INDIANS

October 30, 2016

Chicago, Illinois - Postgame 5

Chicago Cubs - 3, Cleveland Indians - 2

THE MODERATOR: We've got Addison Russell and Kris Bryant. Who has the first question?

Q. Kris, we've been talking the last few days about the offense getting going. Did you feel your homer, then Anthony's ball right after that kind of opened the floodgates just a little bit here to get the offense going?
KRIS BRYANT: Yeah, I mean, yeah, their guy was kind of cruising a little bit through the first three, I think. So, yeah, it was nice to kind of have a big inning there, kind of get us going a little bit. I felt like our at-bats after that inning were just as good. So that's a good sign for us.

Q. Have you seen a different pitching approach in this postseason? Is it changing from team to team the way they're pitching you?
KRIS BRYANT: I feel like it's pretty similar. I feel like as a team, guys are throwing us more curveballs. I don't know. I don't look into the stats. I don't know if we hit curveballs well, but if they keep throwing them, obviously we don't. But, yeah, certain teams are always going to pitch you differently. But nothing too crazy from team to team this postseason.

Q. (No microphone).
KRIS BRYANT: Yeah, I mean, I'm not noticing anything off the charts that's right in front of my face that's glaring that I should notice. But, yeah, it seems pretty similar.

Q. Joe talked in the last few days about the importance of getting off to early leads against these guys. They go up 1-0, and you're into the fourth, so it's starting to open that window when Francona can go to his 'pen. When you come up in that inning, is there a sense of urgency that is with you when you get to the plate there?
KRIS BRYANT: Not crazy sense of urgency, but certainly we want to get some runs there so that they're not going to go to Miller and Allen with the lead there. So for me I wasn't going out there trying to hit a homer or anything of that. It was, have a good at-bat, and it's nice that it went over the fence. Obviously I haven't been swinging the bat too great, but it was nice to kind of get one to kind of help us all out.

Q. Addison, Joe compared the fourth inning tonight with Kris' homer and then Anthony hitting the ball hard right after it to the fourth inning of the game in Los Angeles, Game 4. Did you flash back to that game at all and could this be the same kind of a lift that gets your lineup rolling the rest of the series?
ADDISON RUSSELL: Yeah, somewhat. The thing is, you know, whenever we get people on base, and we don't have any outs, and I would take some good approaches and some good at-bats in those situations and we get people on, I think that we're a threat. You look down the lineup, we've got people that can put up great at-bats through the whole lineup. If you put the ball in play, you have a better chance, obviously. I think tonight a lot of people's approach was to just put the ball in play.

Q. Very few teams have come back from 3-1 deficits to win a World Series. So I'd like to get both of your thoughts about going to Cleveland and trying to defy the odds, Kris?
KRIS BRYANT: Why not us? I mean, that's kind of our -- I feel like we play our best with our backs up against the wall. We went out there today, took care of business. Hopefully we can get out there and win Game 6, because you never know what can happen in a Game 7.

But we're all about writing our own history. This team is a special one, and we look at so many times throughout the year where we haven't been playing good, but I feel like we turn that around.

I saw something, I don't know -- someone told me today that 17 times this year we lost a game and went on to win three in a row, so why can't we do that now?

ADDISON RUSSELL: KB hit the nail on the head. We're writing our own history. We're making history. Why stop? This is entertaining to us. It's fun, and we live for this. We see a lot of challenges ahead of us, and we embrace them. That's what we've been talking about since Spring Training, I think, since 2015. So that's kind of like the mindset we've had and we definitely have embraced that.

Q. For both of you guys, what did you think about watching what Chapman did to finish it off and go that deep, that long eight outs?
ADDISON RUSSELL: It's good to see. I mean, you see him mostly in the 9th, but he works hard. We know that he has those type of outs and those type of outings in him. Tonight he was lights out coming in, I believe, in the 7th, and then shutting it down. He's a good thing to have on this ballclub.

KRIS BRYANT: Yeah, it was a pretty gutsy performance there. Considering the circumstances there, I forgot whether it was the step-off, there's a lot of stuff going on. Their guys trying to get in his head, but he just went out there and did his thing. I think that reason right there is exactly why we got him.

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