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NL DIVISION SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS VS DODGERS

October 9, 2017

Torey Lovullo

Phoenix, Arizona - postgame 3

Dodgers - 3, Diamondbacks - 1

Q. Is it too early for you to kind of look back on what the team accomplished during the season rather than what you didn't accomplish tonight?
TOREY LOVULLO: You look for the positives and the silver lining in everything in moments like these. But I'm hurting right now, as the guys are, and I'm sure I'll reflect on that at some point over the next several days. But for right now, I want to remember how I feel, because I think it will motivate me, and the pain and the frustration that we're all experiencing right now.

I think the guys will feel that in a very normal fashion and digest it on their own. But I want them to properly work through that. I don't want them to dismiss the feeling and kind of bury it in the back of their mind, and I think they will.

I know collectively as a group we're going to look back on this year as one that was very productive. When that happens, I don't know. I don't know. I want to start to think positive thoughts, but I can't quite get there yet, and I'm not going to force it. I want to have it be a natural process.

Q. Walk us through the sixth inning. Was it more trying to get one more inning out of Zack, or was it trying to do a double-switch?
TOREY LOVULLO: No, just Zack got a little tailwind there. He was trying to make some pitches. I could tell by the body language that things were going good. We just wanted one more batter. It was going to be Barnes, and then we were going to start to match up and bridge it to Archie. That was my mindset.

So we just needed that one inning to get through, and unfortunately it didn't happen.

I thought Zack did a good job. He handled Barnes fairly well for the majority of the night, and made a mistake, and Barnes took advantage of it.

Q. What about Zack bouncing back? I mean, he had rough first two innings, but then he managed to right the ship to keep you guys in the game?
TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, he did a good job in several situations. There's a lot of damage control early on. He kept it at a one-run game. He's our guy. He was our ace all year long, and I felt like he deserved that opportunity, once I saw the stuff start to get a little crisper in there and there was a little swing and miss with the slider.

So there were a lot of positives for me for this outing for Zack. Throwing that one extra batter in the sixth made a lot of sense.

Q. I know you said you don't want to really look back yet, but at the beginning of the season, one of the refrains you had was putting the first brick in the wall of the foundation here.
TOREY LOVULLO: Right, right.

Q. I remember that fondly.
TOREY LOVULLO: Right.

Q. It just seems to me that regardless of the pain you feel today, you've put many bricks in the wall, and this is a very strong foundation moving forward to the future. Plus you can use the feeling that you have tonight as a motivating force to doing better next year.
TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, Barry, I think you nailed it. You're exactly right. I had a quick second with the gang and told them basically that; that we have laid a lot of good bricks down on our foundation. This organization is in good hands with ownership and the front office, and I think there's going to be a lot of successful years in the future.

It doesn't happen by accident. You have to build that foundation, and that's something that we're doing every single day here.

We kind of worked through the heavy-lifting phase. We advanced to the playoffs this year. We're very proud of that. But my mindset is we haven't quite accomplished what we need to as an organization.

My promise is to this team, this organization, this town, city, state, that I'm going to work as tirelessly as I possibly can until we turn the page and win a World championship here.

Q. You had difficulty getting to Darvish today. What made it tough? Was there any difference from last time you faced him in August?
TOREY LOVULLO: Fairly similar with the results. I know he drove up his pitch count. I think he gave up three or four runs in that outing and maybe made some mistakes. But he held a very offensive team in check on that day, and he did a good job of that again today.

He switched up his game plan a little bit and deserves a lot of credit, because he was throwing a lot more fastballs and to some key batters in some key situations than we maybe had thought.

But he stood on his stuff and executed with a three-pitch mix. He's got exceptional stuff, and he made it very tough on us tonight.

Q. Do you have any clarity on why Goldie kind of struggled down the stretch and was kind of up and down in this series?
TOREY LOVULLO: I don't know. I know that he's equipped to go out every single night and impact the ball, and he's always feeling like he will. Yeah, I know the numbers weren't exactly what he wanted. I just think he was trying, maybe trying too hard. I don't know. You might have to ask him exactly what was going on.

But the swings were good, just didn't have great results. He made some big home runs for us in big moments, but you expect so much from Paul because he is the face of the Arizona Diamondbacks. When you walk through a little situation like he did, it doesn't go unnoticed. Everybody pays attention to him. But that's his responsibility, and it comes with the territory.

I know that he's going to be just fine moving forward, though.

Q. Can you reflect a little bit about what you learned in your first year as manager?
TOREY LOVULLO: It's probably hard for me to hit it right on the head. But I learned that this is a great game. This is probably the greatest time of my life as far as managing a baseball team. There is a responsibility that comes with my job that I enjoy, and I'm committed to this process.

I learned through the course of the year that, like I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to stop until things are moving in a great direction year after year after year and this organization has won a World championship.

Q. How much of this result do you pin on the Dodgers being good versus you guys just not playing to the expectations that you set?
TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, I don't think the Dodgers played exceptionally well. I've seen them play better. They had a great streak in the middle of the season, but they played good enough to win, and they deserved to win this series. So my congratulations to that organization.

But we didn't play our type of baseball for the past three games. I think everybody that followed us noticed that. We didn't pitch particularly well at times. I think there were spurts of good starting pitching. I think maybe offensively we had a little rut.

This isn't the time of year where you want to just be average offensively. I feel like at times we were going to get our engines started, but we never could. So I think it was more a product of us not playing well and getting beaten by a team that played very sufficiently.

Q. You know David's got so much energy and he brings that to you guys, especially since you put him in the leadoff spot. Do you think he put too much pressure on himself to try to get himself and the team going?
TOREY LOVULLO: I wouldn't say so. Maybe the first night in L.A. I noticed the guys were trying a little too hard. Once we got into the flow of the game and started to score some runs, I think everybody slowly relaxed. I could see some expressions change and we got into a good rhythm.

In David's case, I feel like he's an exceptional hitter. He plays with a ton of energy, and it wasn't a great series for the entire team offensively -- yeah, the entire group offensively for this entire series.

So I'm not going to pinpoint it on any one person. I think that everybody came ready to play. They laid it out there all series long.

What I want to say to everybody that's listening is we gave it all we had. I'm extremely proud of these guys, so I'm not going to hold that on one guy, this situation.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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