NL DIVISION SERIES: BREWERS VS BRAVES

October 9, 2021

Craig Counsell

American Family Field

Milwaukee Brewers

Postgame 2 Press Conference

Braves - 3, Brewers - 0

Q. How did you think Woody pitched? He's sort of getting used to not getting a lot of run support but he always seems to keep it in the game?

CRAIG COUNSELL: I thought Woody pitched really well. Some of the pitches, they had good pitches. The change-up to Albies was below the zone.

Change-up to Riley was down and away. Got it in a pretty good spot.

The Freeman breaking ball was probably middle. But to get beat extra base hits on a ball and a pretty darned good pitch, you tip your cap, really. So I thought he pitched well.

Q. We asked about this before but him not getting support, do you think the hitters -- do you think it bothers them the way Woody's pitched?

CRAIG COUNSELL: I think it bothers the hitters not to score runs, but I don't think it has anything to do with Brandon.

Q. Max Fried, I know you know what he had done in the second half. What did you see from him tonight that's making him so successful in the second half to pitch like that?

CRAIG COUNSELL: It's just a ton of strikes. There's no free pitches for the hitters. He doesn't leave stuff in the middle. The slider's a really good pitch to the right-handed hitters, kind of bears on their hands, and he pairs that with a fastball on their hands.

He's just a really good pitcher, executing a lot of pitches. It spells a tough night for the offense.

Q. Obviously the results weren't what you wanted but what did you think of the at-bats and approach for Fried and the approach for the night?

CRAIG COUNSELL: I have to go back look at it. But I didn't think there was a lot of pitches to hit again. And that's a credit to their pitcher. You know, against Fried, I thought Fried threw the ball really good. We had some pitches to hit against their bullpen that we just fouled off, frankly. A lot of foul balls on the pitches that we had to hit.

Q. The last few innings got a couple runners on base, (indiscernible) against the bullpen. Anything you can take from that moving forward?

CRAIG COUNSELL: I guess like I said, I thought in those three innings, we got runners on base. We had some pitches to hit. And we just fouled them off.

Q. Baseball doesn't always go the way it's scripted. But this series, with the pitching, especially these top pitchers in the first two games, is it what you expected sort of that runs would be tough?

CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, I mean, I think we were hoping to make runs tough for them, for sure, yeah. I think both of their starters have pitched really well.

Q. Max's splits are a little bit reverse. Were you tempted at all to leave Vogey in because he might pop one?

CRAIG COUNSELL: I thought we had a chance to go with Tyrone there. I thought Tyrone had a better chance to pop him.

Q. Can you tell us your plan for Game 3 or are you going to wait?

CRAIG COUNSELL: We'll tell you tomorrow.

Q. Frustration maybe a little bit knowing the bats aren't swinging the ways you guys want them to so far in this series?

CRAIG COUNSELL: It's been a tough series to score runs for both sides. It's two games. It's 1-1. It's a two-out-of-three series now. I think hitters want to have good at-bats. And I think when you -- just everybody's going to be frustrated when you just miss a pitch that you feel like you had to hit. So I think that's natural. But I don't think offensively there's frustration.

Q. That at-bat that Avi had, was that the kind of thing --

CRAIG COUNSELL: I think he probably had a couple of pitches that he'd like to have back.

Q. How much does the home-field advantage mean to you knowing you're leaving with the series tied?

CRAIG COUNSELL: We're going to play in a great atmosphere there. We played in a great atmosphere here. I think playoff games are a blast. They're a lot of fun. So you go in there with that attitude and ultimately it comes down to playing good baseball.