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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: CUBS VS DODGERSOctober 16, 2017Yu DarvishChicago, Illinois - Workout Day Q. Yu, what has been the biggest difference in how you pitch now compared to when you were traded to the Dodgers? YU DARVISH: I think the biggest difference is that the pitch that I use I throw for strikes, and that's my main priority right now, I think that's what I'm doing well compared to what I was doing before, throwing those pitches for strikes. Q. Kenta Maeda has been pitching well out of the bullpen. He was a starter earlier in the season. How do you feel about having him in the bullpen? Also, all those bullpen guys who are doing a great job, how do you feel about having those guys in the bullpen? YU DARVISH: I haven't thrown out of the pen in the postseason, so I don't know how difficult it is, but I bet it is tough. Now all the bullpen guys and all the starters, and all of those guys are doing a great job. I have really good trust in them, my teammates. Q. Early in your career in Japan you would regularly pitch eight innings a game. Now in these playoffs it's rare that a starter lasts that deep into a game. I'm wondering if you can reflect on that adjustment earlier in your career until now when you do have to trust your bullpen to pitch two, three, or four innings every night? YU DARVISH: What I do as a starting pitcher, I guess it goes to everybody, even in the playoffs, as a starter you want to go as deep as you can every time you go out there, and that includes the playoffs. So there is nothing much approach-wise mentally that I'd change from those times that I was in the pen. Q. In the Division Series the team won two in a row under your pitching in the third game, and you mentioned that you want to cut the momentum and to finish the team off? So are you going to have the same mental approach going toward Game 3? YU DARVISH: There is nobody out there that goes out there to try to lose. Every time you go out there you try to win. That's the approach. Q. How close do you feel you are right now to where you were in Texas before the surgery during your consecutive All-Star appearances, when you were there at the peak of your game? How close do you feel now in the last four starts to that? YU DARVISH: I've seen a lot of comments from people saying I'm getting close to where I was before the Tommy John surgery and all that stuff. But really, if you look at me pitch right now, mechanics and the pitch selection approach, I'm a different kind of pitcher. So it's hard for me to compare me right now to before the Tommy John surgery. Q. Have you ever been a part of anything like that occurred last night with the walk-off home run, and the subsequent celebration and stuff like that? YU DARVISH: There have been times when I was in Japan that probably two were walk offs and that was a big game, very similar to that. It's in the playoffs, and then we played a game like that and it was special. Q. You pitched at Wrigley Field, I believe it was last year, and had a lot of strikeouts, a lot of walks. Couldn't get out of the fifth inning. What do you remember about the weather, about pitching there, and what you might have learned from that that will help you tomorrow? YU DARVISH: Last time I pitched there at Wrigley I think I came off the DL before that, and it was still like an uncertainty about coming off the Tommy John surgery and all that stuff. So it was really hard for me to focus on facing the hitters. Now that I feel pretty confident with all my physical stuff, and I'm having a different approach to the hitters. I'm pretty confident that I can pitch better this time. Q. From the experience you faced last year and you've seen them play games, what is the impression on the Cubs lineup, and are there any particular hitters that you need to be really careful about? YU DARVISH: They've got really good lineups from top to bottom, and they play as a team so there is nobody in that lineup that I can get easy on. So it's going to be a battle, and I just want to take one pitch at a time, one guy at a time. Q. Pitching in the playoffs, that's where all the Major Leaguers want to be in, and you're in that situation. Is there any mentally different feeling or excitement going towards tomorrow's outing? YU DARVISH: Right now I'm more worried about what I'm going to do in the four-hour flight going to Chicago. That's what I think about before the game. Q. There is going to be a temperature difference compared to L.A. in Chicago. Is there anything that you would like to do to prepare before the game starts in Chicago? YU DARVISH: Like I've said before, I always have the same preparation, and there is nothing much that I'm going to change for tomorrow just because of the weather. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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