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NL WILDCARD GAME: ROCKIES VS CUBS

October 2, 2018

Joe Maddon

Chicago, Illinois - postgame

Colorado - 2

Chicago - 1

JOE MADDON: Before you ask I want to congratulate the Rockies and my good friend Pepe Negro. That was a hell of a ballgame right there. Both sides pitched as good as you could possibly pitch. Kind of an instant classic kind of a game. So to the Rockies and Pepe and the whole group, I want to say that.

And also to my group we just had a nice little moment within our clubhouse. It's a very tightly knit group, a couple guys spoke a little bit and then we did our shot and then we just went around and hugged each other. It was very sincere, it means something, it's about the culture that we have created. This is four years in a row in the playoffs, this is something we really believe we can sustain. We just got a little bit challenged offensively at the end of the year, obviously that hurt us. But as a group and talented and the way they interact I could not ask for more.

Q. How much of this game was kind of a microcosm of the way things have gone for you guys offensively? You rigged pretty well in runs this year, but you had so many games where you just couldn't get the big hit. Ended up with zero or one runs.
JOE MADDON: Yea, we played that game a lot. Believe me, it was on my mind for a large part of it. We had some opportunities, we just could not cash in. They pitched really well too, but we need to figure that out in the off-season next spring training. As my buddy Dave would say, we left too much chicken on the bone right there. We've had plenty of opportunities and I'm not here to denigrate anybody, our work's put in, the hay's in the barn, everybody cares, it just didn't play out this way offensively. We caught the ball, we pitched really, really well. Like I said, the espirit de corps I can't ask for more. So it was just something we really have to focus on in the off-season.

Q. Along those lines with the last two home games, playoff games, two runs, are you shocked by that?
JOE MADDON: Well, like we just talked about, it's happened. It's happened. We have been in that, we put ourselves in that position often. Even the games against the Pirates to get to this point we didn't score a whole lot. And then we probably came back and won two. We have had a series this year where we scored how many runs did we score in Pittsburgh? One per game in a four game series and won two of them. So that's, we have been fighting with this and I want to believe and I do believe that you're going to see a lot of these guys rebound more offensively next year because they're very talented and they're young and they're not hurt. To me it's like an age issue, normally, and it's also an injury issue. But we're not, we're not injured and we're not old, so I really anticipate a nice rebound.

Q. The expectations have obviously been very high here for the last four years. You guys win 95 games in the regular season and unfortunately fall a little bit short. How disappointing is it not to go where you wanted to go here this season?
JOE MADDON: I think I mentioned that in the pregame. It is disappointing because our anticipation or expectation is to play the last game of the year and win it. It's just that this year we had a lot of things go awry. I mean I'm not going to stand here and sit here and number them. And furthermore the schedule was rather difficult towards the end, I don't even know how much that played into it. But I just complemented our guys on the fact that none of them complained, none of them made excuses, and to the very end like in the dugout it was very much alive supporting one another. To me this stuff is important. Again that's culturally something you're looking for in this game. You play 162, you're with each other every day, 40 games in spring training, the 163, and then and spring training so that's a lot of games. And so I love the fact that our guys are on the same page, it's going to matter when we do it again next year I think this is going to serve as motivation for next season.

Q. After a loss this jarring how much change do you expect in the off-season and in terms of personnel or even approach to hitting because that was the biggest problem?
JOE MADDON: I honestly don't anticipate a lot. Again, that's not my purview. My purview is to manage not to worry about that stuff. Again, I'm looking at names that you just asked the question, there's still a lot of young names there that are still learning their craft offensively. We had scored a lot of runs, it's not like we have been void of scoring runs, we just there's been clumps where we scored runs and there has been clumps when we have not been able to. We have to be able to figure out the run scoring and especially this time of the year. It's not the first time it's happened to us in the playoffs. So we just have to continue to work through it. I trust in Theo and Jed and the boys up top and they will make the necessary adjustments but again that's not within my purview, my purview is to work with what we have and I love what we have.

Q. Wondering what your thoughts are on the starting pitching matchup tonight. For six plus innings it looked like just a classic dual.
JOE MADDON: Yeah, I didn't want to take Jon out. Jon was good to go. He was definitely good to go and Happ starts out the inning we put ourselves in a position possibly to score and it went away. But Johnny had a lot left in the tank, a lot. And their kid Freeland pitching on three days rest that's pretty darn impressive. That's a growth moment for him personally now and in the future. So they were both fabulous. Bullpens are fabulous, Ottavino pitched out of a tough moment. Cole Hamels coming out of the bullpen, Cishek looked sharp. How about Stropy? First time in weeks and looked like he just pitched two days ago. So again there's a lot of platitudes to be spread around, there's a lot of good stuff, we just did not hit like we think we're capable of, otherwise some pretty good baseball.

Q. Now that it's over, can you describe the season in one word and kind of expound on it a little bit?
JOE MADDON: One word? Gritty. Gritty. Again, you're not going to hear me make excuses and this is not an excuse we have had a lot of things go awry this year and in spite that have still tied for the most wins in the National League in a 162 game season. Again, that speaks to the quality of the player in the room of the and even though maybe the numbers offensively didn't matchup, these guys put up 95 wins. That speaks to the heart of the player, that speaks to the attitude of the group. So we lost some tough games in the postseason, in this postseason rights now, or getting to the postseason, but I think grit is a wonderful word that describes this group and it also I've talked about the heart, even a couple years ago when we won the World Series and don't forget the heartbeat. I think the heartbeat within this group is very prominent and as a manager that's probably the thing I'm most proud of.

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