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AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS VS ASTROS

October 4, 2018

Alex Bregman

Houston, Texas - Workout Day

Q. Alex, Francona says you have turned yourself into one of the elite players in the game. What's that mean coming from him?
ALEX BREGMAN: It means a lot. He's been one of the best managers in the game for a long time, and to hear him say that is definitely an honor. It's special. Hopefully, you continue to get better and improve and continue to play at a high level.

Q. Alex, having gone through the playoffs last year, what do you look forward to the most about October, and what do you think it is about October that a player like you kind of rises to the challenge?
ALEX BREGMAN: This is winning baseball. This is all hands on deck, let's go to win the game, let's figure out any way possible to win. I think this team thrives in those types of situations.

It's a brotherhood. It's a family, and we're all pulling on the same end of the rope and hanging on every pitch with a 2-1 count to Correa in the ALDS in the fourth inning with two outs. It's a ball, and the whole dugout is going, Let's go. If it's a strike, we're like, No, that ball was outside. It's a lot of fun, and we hang on every pitch.

Q. Alex, you can make the argument that their pitching staff is the second best in baseball. What's going to be the challenge for this offense to generate runs against their pitchers?
ALEX BREGMAN: They're definitely tough. Who's the first best?

Q. You.
ALEX BREGMAN: Oh, I didn't know.

No, they're good. They're tough. Kluber's tough, man. He's really tough. They've got a ton of good pitchers on that staff. They've got Cody Allen, Andrew Miller, Carrasco, Clevinger. Yeah, it's going to be tough.

Q. You all experienced some injuries this year, but you were the mainstay when the big three went down. How important was that to you? And how did that change your mindset knowing that it was left up to you to be the leader on the team?
ALEX BREGMAN: Well, it was definitely tough on our team to lose three All-Stars. Those guys are incredible baseball players, and we're super happy that they're back and healthy and ready to go for this postseason run.

But there's so many other guys on that roster that, if we do our job, we're going to win baseball games. Marwin Gonzalez, Yuli Gurriel. There's so many guys. Tyler White came up and had an incredible season. McCann, he comes back, we win games.

There's so many guys that, if they do their job and if we focus on doing our part, we're a very successful baseball team. So in no way, shape, or form when those guys went down, was that -- it was a full team. It was fun to watch, fun to be a part of. I'm just happy to be on that team with those guys.

Q. From the competitive standpoint, and you talk about pulling on the rope, what's it like to play behind Verlander and see him do his thing?
ALEX BREGMAN: Playing behind Verlander in the regular season is a blast. I love playing behind him in the regular season. He's one of the elite pitchers in the game. Playing behind him in the postseason, everybody saw how that worked last year. He's the best pitcher in the game in the postseason. So I wouldn't want to face him.

Q. You guys entered the postseason last year with a ton of confidence. Is it fair to say that you have more confidence even now after that run and how the season has played out?
ALEX BREGMAN: I'll say that we're a very confident team. I think that we can use the experience last year from the postseason, winning the World Series, to our advantage. But the one thing that us winning the World Series last year did is drive us to win another one. That's been the only thing on our mind to win that World Series. It's to win another one. This postseason doesn't start in the World Series. It's not a seven-game series against the National League team. We started against a very tough Indians team, so we'd better focus on the first pitch of Game 1.

Q. The season that you had this year, the numbers that you put up across the board, is this something that you had envisioned this early in your career you could accomplish? Or is this just kind of the start of Alex Bregman that we saw this year?
ALEX BREGMAN: Yeah, I did, but I think there's a ton of room to improve. I was mad that I didn't do that last year, to be honest with you. I kind of had a bad year. It was definitely, definitely something I envisioned doing, and I think there's so much room to improve on both sides of the ball, and I look forward to working on it.

Q. To what degree do the new players that have been added to the roster bring a new sense of energy to a team that returns its core from last year?
ALEX BREGMAN: It brings hunger. You've got a guy like Gerrit Cole who didn't win one last year. Osuna's hungry. Cole's hungry. We've got some other guys on the roster as well, Pressly. Those guys want to win really bad, and they know that they're very happy to be in the Houston Astros uniform because they feel like they have a very good chance at winning their first World Series.

Q. You had mentioned something earlier about clearly every team has talent, but your team has so many guys come through in that moment, feel good, want to be in that moment. Do you think that's maybe what sets your clubhouse apart from so many others?
ALEX BREGMAN: I think, if you look back on last year's postseason, I think that every single person on our roster contributed in a big way in a big situation. If they didn't come through in that situation, we don't win the World Series. Maybe the biggest swing of the World Series was Marwin Gonzalez' homer in Game 2. Then Brian McCann in Game 5 hitting a home run to pad the lead in the eighth inning and make it a 3-run lead. Then they come back and score three. We don't even go to extra innings in Game 5 if he doesn't hit that homer.

There's so many different plays. Yuli hitting the homer off Kershaw. Or Altuve hitting the three-run homer off Maeda. If you look at last year, so many different people came up clutch, and so many have taken that with them into this year and want to be in that situation.

Q. Alex, you've been the captain/leader of the dugout celebrations. Anything special planned for the postseason?
ALEX BREGMAN: Yeah, wins. That's it. Just winning games. It's the postseason now.

Q. No special celebrations for the dugout?
ALEX BREGMAN: I don't know. There's going to be a lot of celebrations, but the main thing is just winning the game. That's all we're focused on. We haven't played in anything like that. Gatorade. I like Powerade better.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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