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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DODGERS VS BREWERS

October 19, 2018

Craig Counsell

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - postgame 6

Milwaukee - 7, Los Angeles - 2

Q. The thing that you said, that you talked about in the pregame today about getting fan energy, and if you could get a rally going, it looked like it completely unfolded that way in the first inning.
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I will tell you the only other thing I said is I thought it was important that we put a zero up in the first inning. I don't know if I said that to you guys. We obviously didn't.

But look, Aggie's hit, it was -- you couldn't describe it as any bigger. It lifted the roof off the place, and the first inning was loud from then on. The rest of the game, whenever we got in a scoring situation it got really loud. And I thought it helped us. It certainly put a crazy amount of energy in the dugout and it made it a lot of fun.

Q. Six of your seven runs were with two out, in addition, and the approach especially early on, it seemed like you were able to take Ryu to the opposite field a little bit, part of your success tonight.
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean it was just a case where we executed well. It was just get a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it. And for, really, since Game 1, I thought it was the first time we really did a heck of a job at getting our pitch to hit a lot of the night.

The first inning Aggie kind of takes what they give him. He did that all night, three hits where he went to the opposite field. Moose got a curveball for a strike and put a good swing on it. Kratzy goes the other way, and just gets one through the hole. But we were kind of aggressive, actually, in that first inning, but you're right, a lot of opposite field hits.

Q. As tense as things were, did you get a moment to chuckle about Corey's at-bat and what was the chess game that went into his first at-bat since high school?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I think anytime -- look, in the National League it's always seven away, you've got to run in, six away the guy might hit with the bases loaded and two outs. So my decision is I've got to take Lorenzo, Christian, or Ryan out of the game if I want to guarantee Corey doesn't hit. I chose not to, and that's the one inning that he can have an at-bat there.

But no intention of taking him out. You're hoping something crazy happens, you're hoping he walks, really. I thought he took a decent swing. And then a not-so-decent swing.

Q. Late in the season Braun seemed to know that he was going to start putting up big numbers, and it was only a matter of time and he has. What have you seen from him the last month or so, and how much of a force is he compared to the guy we remember from years ago?
CRAIG COUNSELL: I think you're right with Ryan. He got himself -- there was a stretch this season where I think he'd tell you he was struggling. And we got to the month of September. He had a little bit of health issue kind of early in September. Mid-September we kind of started -- we acquired Curtis Granderson, and Curtis was playing some significant playing time against right-handed pitching.

I remember we went to St. Louis and Ryan woke up at 9:00 and told everybody, I'm back. And it was really as simple as that. He homered off Flaherty that day, had a great series in St. Louis. And he's been that middle-of-the-order bat to me since kind of that last week of the season. I don't know what happened. I can't tell you what happened. But I think he'd tell you, too, it was that day in St. Louis where things really changed for him.

Q. From a personal standpoint, you've known him, been his teammate, how have you seen him mature or change?
CRAIG COUNSELL: The one thing I'd say is what's fun for me to watch is I think Ryan is enjoying this as much as anybody on our team. He spent his whole career here. I think at one point, probably when I took the job, I don't know if he thought his career would end in anymore playoff games. And so I think he's enjoying this part of it as much as anybody is because of that.

Q. How close were you to using Hader tonight and how important was it that you did not have to?
CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah. So he was up -- probably the closest was the eighth inning. We were up -- we tacked on a run there to make it 6-2. We sent Corbin out there. He was going to have Turner and Bellinger. And if anybody got on it was probably going to be Josh -- I'm sorry, he was going to have Turner, Machado. If anybody got on, I think Josh would have had Bellinger.

So Corbin did -- goes 6 up and 6 down and that's what keeps Josh out of the game. In addition we tacked on some runs and gave him some space in the 9th to keep going. Best-case scenario for sure for us.

Q. How many innings can he go tomorrow?
CRAIG COUNSELL: 12 (laughter). I'm just kidding.

He's fresh. He got up tonight. We'll see how he goes. But you'll see him tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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