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NL WILDCARD GAME: BREWERS VS NATIONALS

October 1, 2019

Dave Martinez

Chicago, Illinois - postgame

Nationals - 4, Brewers, 3

Q. Can you go through what was the pregame plan for pitching? Did you think about hitting for Scherzer in the third there, and what did you think you could get out of Strasburg?
DAVE MARTINEZ: We thought about it, but the thing is to try to get Stras through the later innings, as well. Scherzer settled down after the first two innings. He was dynamite. We rode him as long as we could. We knew we had to pinch-hit for him.

What can you say about Stras? He comes in out of the bullpen and shuts them down, gives us a chance to get back in the game. You guys seen the rest. The eighth inning we scored some runs, Huddy comes in and closes the 9th.

Q. The at-bats continually come of pass the baton, and Juan comes up with a big hit. What would you expect out of a 20-year-old?
DAVE MARTINEZ: What about that? He's done it all year for us. That's why he's a cleanup hitter. He makes good at-bats, and he comes through when we need him to come through. He's been unbelievable all year for us.

Q. What did you think of the quality at-bats throughout the game at that point, and was that effective pitching by them or did you feel like the moment got too big for them?
DAVE MARTINEZ: You don't know. Look, Pomeranz was really, really good. He was. We hit some balls hard. I thought Suzuki's ball had a chance to get out. And Trea just missed a couple of balls.

And as I said all year, these guys never hit. And their bats got better. We put the ball in play. I was trying to save Zimm to hit it with somebody on base. I knew Taylor had a good at-bat against Hader once. It was the perfect opportunity. If he gets on somehow, we've got Trea, and I can pinch-hit for Eaton with Zimm, and that's the way it worked out.

Q. This is like a lot of your wins this year. Your starter doesn't get a lot of support early. It's getting late in the game and then all of a sudden things happen. Can you talk about how this season has gone with so many wins like that?
DAVE MARTINEZ: It's been going like that all year. But like I said, you know, they played to the last out, you know? Every day, they don't quit until the 27th out is recorded. And honestly, for me, you kind of got used to it. We're sitting there and nobody ever thought we were ever done until the last out, really. The dugout was fired up. The guys were fired up. Michael gets hit and simultaneously everyone screamed let's go, and that's all it took.

Q. So can you figure out that Corbin will start Game 1, are they there yet?
DAVE MARTINEZ: I will tell you Patrick Corbin will start Game 1.

Q. You mentioned Taylor hit by a pitch. Obviously there was a tense couple of minutes reviewing it. What have you seen since that convinced you that --
DAVE MARTINEZ: He had his glove on the batting glove. It hit his hand and hit the bat, but it hit first.

Q. I know you weren't here for a lot of those, what can you say for the guys that have been here through those, and how can you use that to move forward?
DAVE MARTINEZ: This was a big win for the guys in the clubhouse, celebrating right now, for this organization. We get to move on and go to LA. But it's a testament to those guys in that clubhouse. They played hard all year long. We started off horrible, as we all know, and we vowed that we wouldn't quit. I told the boys, I promise you, stay with it, don't quit, this will turn around, and it did. And here we are today.

Q. You guys had gotten Hader before here in the summer. When he comes in, does that ever come into anyone's mind, we've gotten to this guy before, and maybe a little bit extra confidence?
DAVE MARTINEZ: The biggest thing is we told the guys to be aggressive, but in the strike zone. Make him throw strikes. Obviously, that's key for anything, but when he's throwing 97, 98, you've got to get them in the strike zone. I thought we did a pretty good job of that today.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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