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NL DIVISION SERIES: ROCKIES VS BREWERS

October 4, 2018

Craig Counsell

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - postgame 1

Brewers - 3, Rockies - 2

Q. Craig, you were like three outs away from getting those 27 outs you talked about before the game. How tough was it to sort of see it come that close to working the way you scripted it and then have to obviously scratch it out a different way?
CRAIG COUNSELL: I mean, look, it worked the way we wanted. I mean, it worked beautifully. Any time we can get J.J. into a game at the end of the game or Corey or Josh, the game has worked.

You work hard to try to put yourselves in that position. We had the game right where we wanted to, and I thought J.J. made some good pitches, just they hit some ground balls -- got a solid base hit to Parra and then they hit a couple balls to the infield and then he made some big-time pitches to keep the score tied really.

You know, it was kind of one of those innings. He did a great job keeping it tied, really. That was the key to the inning is that he -- things weren't going well, and he managed to keep it tied.

Q. You've been answering the questions here quite a bit, but can you reflect on Christian, not only the home run, but working back from an 0-2 count to get that walk?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Well, you saw it again tonight, just the quality at-bat, the quality the at-bat just stands out. He's such a difficult out. You know, and he's down 0-2 to Ottavino and somehow manages to work his way back. He did it another time. And obviously the home run was huge.

That's what we've seen in the month of September. That's been his month of September. Those are his five at-bats in a night or four at-bats in a night that's what they look like.

Q. With Moose, is that the reason why you got him, and is that just a situation where he's been there, done that before and he doesn't shrink from that situation?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Well, you know, it was a similar situation where he gets down 0-2, Ottavino, he got ahead of both those guys, and he's good, man. That guy has got a ton of strikeouts, over 100 strikeouts for a reliever, and a very good slider.

Look, Moose has been in those spots. That's one thing you know, and I think it's something that you try to not make the situation too big, and he did a great job of it and finally got a pitch to hit.

Q. Obviously Woodruff came out and gave you what you needed those first couple innings, but had things gone differently or had he struggled, would it have changed the way you used your pitchers afterwards, or was the plan kind of the plan?
CRAIG COUNSELL: No, the games -- no, you've got to treat the game as a living, breathing organism. So you've got to treat the game -- the game calls for different things in different situations.

Brandon did his job beautifully, and then Corbin Burnes followed and did his job beautifully. Those guys really put us in -- before the game, if you'd have told me I was going to get five innings from two guys, I would have said we're in a very good spot. And so they did it, and lots of credit -- I know everybody in our organization, our player development, our scouting should be proud. Two homegrown guys going out there in the first game of the playoff series and getting 15 outs for us, pretty cool.

The game went according to plan. It doesn't always, and you've got to be ready for it.

Q. What was the plan if Moustakas didn't get the hit pitching-wise?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Gio Gonzalez was going to come into the game. We get Gio up when we need a walk-off hit because it's happened a couple times now.

Q. Take a punch like that in the ninth inning and come back and win, it must say something pretty cool about your team.
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, it feels good because it was a big punch because of the way that we pitched the whole game, because we pitched beautifully the whole game.

You know, it's a punch that knocks you back a little bit, right? But Soria came out and has a good inning. We get back to the top of the order with the Yelich leading off, and just the toughness of his out makes you feel good about what's coming up that inning. We had Grandy coming up. We had lefties coming up what we knew was going to be right-handed pitching.

That was the inning for us. And the fact that we -- like you said, we took that blow and a bunch of guys kind of gutted it through. And J.J., too, especially J.J., that inning could have fallen apart really bad after we gave up two runs with first and third and one out, and they're looking really good still.

Q. Can you describe the scene when Moose gets that hit and the emotion, this place erupts? Did it bring back any memories of playoff games here?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean, I guess probably the closest game would be from the guy who threw out the first pitch today as far as a playoff game with a walk-off hit. It's a cool moment, man.

The fans took -- it was a roller coaster ride for the fans tonight. Like I said, I mean, just proud of the way we pitched the whole night, and then we had -- offensively we've got to do a little better job with the opportunities that we had. We had a bunch of opportunities where contact gets us a run, and we didn't capitalize on that. We left some runs out there because of that.

But it was -- man, it was a great scene, man, and walk-off hit in the playoffs is going to get you a pretty good scene.

Q. Have you noticed obviously teams trying to pitch Christian different this last month and basically trying everything, first pitch changeup he hits for a home run and guys are just maybe shaking their head at this point?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, you know, he's drawing walks, and he feels like they're going after him still. And tonight I thought was a good example. He's down in the count, and so they're going after him. And he's working his way back into the count. It hasn't been four-pitch walks, things like that.

But he is -- he's a locked-in player. That's not uncommon for great players. I think the length of time that we've seen this is what's been so amazing for us.

Q. We haven't mentioned Corey Knebel yet, the way his season went and where he was a month and a half ago, to come all the way back and be this dominant, how do you think he's done it?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah. For Corey, it was just let's take a step back and take a deep breath. It was a little reflection on his part at where he was at, and that things -- things aren't as bad as they seem sometimes.

And I think some time off allowed him to realize that this is not something that's a loss -- he's not lost. It is just let's just take a deep breath and understand who we are and what makes us good. And I give him a lot of credit for taking that deep breath and jumping right back in there and being great.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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