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NL DIVISION SERIES: CUBS VS NATIONALS

October 10, 2017

Joe Maddon

Chicago, Illinois - postgame 4

Q. At this stage with Jake, does an extra day do him any extra good or not?
JOE MADDON: It's a push. There's no really extra advantage. He was ready to pitch today. He was ready to go. So there's no real great advantage for us.

Q. Can you maybe clear up what was asked of baseball or not in terms of playing the game earlier in the day? The forecast has been this way.
JOE MADDON: I have no -- nothing on that one. I think Mr. Torre is coming in here pretty soon and he'll explain everything for you.

Q. They could have an advantage with Strasburg coming back. Would you have liked the game to be played at one o'clock or something?
JOE MADDON: You know, how many times -- I've talked about you have to be the beat the best to be the best. Whatever they choose to do we have to be ready for it. You don't run away from anything, so however it plays out, it's going to play out that way. I don't want to try to over-dissect anything. It's just the way the weather showed up today. Nobody's fault. It's raining and then you move on from there.

Q. Your team seems to be battle-ready, and doesn't seem to concern them whether it's Strasburg or any of their pitchers. Would you concur with that and how did they get to the point that they were so focused that it doesn't matter who they are facing?
JOE MADDON: Well, you're going to face nothing but good pitching this time of the year. And, again, there's nothing you can do to control any of these events so why even waste one second worrying about it.

Right now our guys are ready to play. They were in the weight room getting ready to play. Everything was fine, nobody was crying anything about anything, about the wait or what was going to happen tonight. Nobody kept coming into my office asking what's going on. They were just getting ready to play.

Last year -- I think the last two years, we've learned a lot. We ran into a buzzsaw with the Mets a couple years ago, saw a lot of good pitching there. Last year we got beyond some good pitching to win. You're not going to see anything but good pitching against the Nationals. I don't care who they throw out there, their starters are that good.

Moving forward, you don't cry about stuff like that. You get ready, you go play, and again you have to pitch better than good pitching to win.

Q. Does the depth of your starting rotation play into not getting stressed about changes like this that come along?
JOE MADDON: Well, yeah, we're in the same boat they are actually. If they choose to -- they have not even announced what they are going to do yet, whatever they choose to do they still have other qualified guys as we do. They feel the same way we feel. There's no difference about it. I think when it comes to playing the game of baseball, these are less than optimal conditions.

You're playing the most important games of the year. You want to play in better weather. Like I said, whatever it is, you've just got to get ready and go ahead and do it. There's no -- there is no crying. You just go play.

But I've been involved in probably the worst weather game I think in the history of the game in 2008, and I know how un-fun that was. Whatever they decided to do, we're with it. I know Joe Torre is going to explain everything from MLB's perspective, but we'll be ready to play tomorrow.

Q. Not asking for crying here, but how much of an advantage do you think it will end up being for the Dodgers that you guys might have to play two days in a row and fly across country, or the Nationals, where they are sitting there drinking tea?
JOE MADDON: We've talked about that. Some people talk about, you have to play right up till the very end and then you're going to have an advantage because your team is kind of like into it. But then again, when you get a chance to rest and set things up, that's always good, also.

I don't know. Both these teams, between us and Washington, I think whoever wins this series, we'll be ready for that moment. I don't think we're going to -- neither one will be concerned about that; you'll just be happy to get there, actually.

Of course it's better to be in our position, of course it is, there's no way to deny that, but you're dealt the hand, you play it, and you go on from there. Either way, man, I just want us to get there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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