AL DIVISION SERIES: RAYS VS RED SOX

October 10, 2021

Nick Pivetta

Hunter Renfroe

Kyle Schwarber

Fenway Park

Boston Red Sox

Postgame 3 Press Conference

Red Sox 6, Rays 4

Q. Nick, was this the best you threw all season? And talk about your emotions coming off the mound in those last two wins.

NICK PIVETTA: I just gave it my all, to be honest with you. I just competed with the strike zone, competed with those guys, and my energy just shows what this means to me and means to our team. It's really exciting. It's fun to be here. It's a moment in time for me and for our team.

So I think it's just me showing my emotions. It's just excitement, and that's just the way it goes.

Q. Nick, when Alex was up here, he said you go to a different place mentally sometimes when you're coming off the mound. How does that feel for you?

NICK PIVETTA: I don't know. To be honest with you, it just kind of happens for me. I think it's just my competitive nature. Like I said, how much I care about these guys here and how much I want to do good for the team and put them on my back and just we're all trying our hardest, and we're all doing the best we can. It was a team effort today. It was just exciting.

Q. Have you at any point in your career thrown 140 pitches over three days?

NICK PIVETTA: No, but it's fine. It's just another day for me.

Q. How do you feel?

NICK PIVETTA: Great.

Q. Just take us through the ball to right field and how it played out.

HUNTER RENFROE: I had no idea what pitch it was, first one the slider, middle. He hit it pretty well, and I was actually going for the catch and happened to look up, and the wall was right there. It hit the top of the wall, ricocheted off the ground, hit me in the right hip. Hopefully, thankfully, bounced over the fence, and they issued a ground-rule double.

Q. Were you familiar with the rule and all that?

HUNTER RENFROE: Yeah. It would be the same thing if you were going down the line, hit your glove, hit the ground, and bounced over. It would be the same thing.

Q. For any of you guys, down the stretch you played a lot of games that seemed to be decided in the eighth or ninth inning. To what degree do you think that prepared you for nights like tonight and games like tonight?

KYLE SCHWARBER: The biggest thing is that we didn't quit. We knew that the last six whatever games we played, going down to the wire, the hardest thing was getting in. We all knew what was at stake. We just had to get in. After that, all it was was just going out there and executing and take the result.

We've done a fantastic job offensively, defensively, pitching, executing, things like that. We're picking each other up. That's the biggest thing. For the game like that to unravel how it was, obviously, one, it's not ideal. But two, you see what Nicky does. You see what C does there at the end. It was big. It puts us in a really good situation, and we just have to be able to go out there tomorrow.

It's not over. Yeah, great win. It's not over. We need to go out there tomorrow and take care of business.

Q. Nick, Alex said that your pitching performance reminded him a little of Nate in 2018. Did you watch that game? Kind of where were you? And you must have heard people talk about it here. Did that cross your mind at all that that sort of thing is what's called upon in a game like this?

NICK PIVETTA: Yeah, I think I alluded to that previously a couple of weeks ago. I've taken a lot from Nate and how he's helped me prepare for these situations. I did watch that game, so I was aware of it. At the moment, I'm just trying to go up there and throw zeros and do the best I probably can to keep the team in, so that our offense can come through for us.

Q. Where were you when you watched that game?

NICK PIVETTA: Probably in Los Angeles at the time.

Q. Kyle, could you walk us through the play and your pumping up of the crowd. How did you decide to do that to your own fans?

KYLE SCHWARBER: You've got to be able to make fun of yourself every once in a while and loosen the situation up. Obviously, being new over there at first base, you make the error, and Nate picks you up. Unbelievable job by Nate. You go out there and make the good old routine play and loosen it up a little bit.

You've got to be able to make fun of yourself. It was a good time. I think I got a laugh out of pretty much almost everyone. It's a game. Like you've got to be able to laugh at yourself.

At the end of the day, Nate went two, three right after that, and it was fun.

Q. Any of you can answer this, but a lot was made after Tuesday's game about the crowd and how good it was, and Alex said he thought that today's was even better. Can you talk a little bit about the atmosphere of going through this last few games here and what it's been like.

HUNTER RENFROE: I don't know if it could have been better than the Yankees series. I think that was probably the best fans, noise, interaction that I've ever seen, from both ours and Yankees fans alike.

Tonight was incredible as well. Obviously, it was a different situation, being that we went 13 innings or whatever, 14 innings, whatever it was, but they were in it from the beginning, just like that other night, and it was fun.

The guys, obviously, we build off the fan interaction and the noise, and we love it. It fired us up. This is why we come to the field. This is it.

Q. Kiké is having an incredible series, adding to an already incredible postseason career. Can you just talk about what it's like having him and how he's able to do this and put on this performance in October.

KYLE SCHWARBER: It's fantastic. The guy's locked in. To be able to go out there -- the postseason, it's a different beast. You can't compare it to any regular season game. I feel like it brings the best out of everyone. You see what Kiké is doing at the plate right now. The biggest thing is let him keep going up there and keep doing what he's doing.

Give him high fives whenever he comes in, hits a home run, hits a big double, whatever it is. Don't mention anything. Let him keep enjoying the moment. That's the biggest thing. We're all enjoying the moment right now. He's doing an exceptional job of enjoying the moment.

Q. Nick, could you just kind of reflect on how good this game was overall, and when you get the ball in the tenth, are you prepared to go as long as you need to go in that instance?

NICK PIVETTA: Yeah, Nate started off with us, and he did an incredible job to go deep. Then the guys who came in between did a great job.

For me personally, I'm just prepared to do whatever it takes at any time. I think that's the most important thing, until I'm taken out of the game. I was ready to go as long as I possibly could. I had the energy for it. I had the rest for it.

There's a lot of pressure in those situations. You've got to have fun with it. You've got to be excited, feed off the crowd, feed off of everybody, the dugout. Everybody was in it. It kept me in the baseball game. It kept me at high energy, which I like to be at, and it was exciting stuff to be a part of.

It's just a moment in time, like I said, and it will never be forgotten.