NL DIVISION SERIES: GIANTS VS DODGERS

October 11, 2021

Alex Wood

Dodger Stadium

San Francisco Giants

Postgame 3 Press Conference

San Francisco Giants - 1, Los Angeles Dodgers - 0.

Q. We were asking you yesterday about having faced them already this season and what you might do differently. As kind of things went along, how did you maybe change things up at all or did you?

ALEX WOOD: Yeah, it's a tall task on those guys when they face you so many times. Top to bottom, they're just really a great group of professional hitters. They have a plan of what they're doing at-bat to at-bat depending who they're facing.

And that's always been one of my favorite parts of being a pitcher and being a starter is that chess match going back and forth. So just trying to kind of think along with them, thinking about what they think I'm going to throw, and where to go from there.

But the biggest thing against a lineup like that was just execution. I think we executed for the most part tonight. They put a little bit of pressure on, I think it was the 4th or 5th, but just executing and guys making plays behind us. So I felt good tonight, just any time you go up against Max Scherzer you know it's going to be a long night, so just keep it close, give our guys a chance to scrap a run across. And then the bullpen, it's hard to say enough about what they did tonight. Multiple innings from Rog, Doval, Jake's thrown like one inning in the last four weeks, just truly special performances across the board. And on a weird night. This is, five years of playing here, I never seen the weather and the wind like it was tonight. It was just really odd. It felt like we were kind of playing in San Francisco a little bit, more so than L.A. But just a great team win, it really was.

Q. You took part of my question there, with the weather. You pitched here countless times, you say you've never seen it like that. Max said it was pushing him off the mound towards home plate. How did it affect you?

ALEX WOOD: Yeah, it was, the first inning or two, it was definitely, the wind was definitely going more than it was I felt like the rest of the game. I felt like it died down a little bit at least around the infield. I wasn't trying to get too caught up in what the wind was doing, I was just trying to execute, make pitches, attack those guys. I knew they were going to be aggressive, knew we had to execute, and we had a good game plan, Buster called a great game the rest is history.

Q. Given your history here, head-to-head against Max Scherzer, your life-long plan to continue to be a starter, how gratifying was tonight for both you yourself individually and what you're able to do to lift your teammates up?

ALEX WOOD: Yeah, for sure. These are the moments that test you. If you're in the big leagues, if you're a big-league ball player you're one the best at what you do on planet earth. So you work hard all off-season, you work hard all season for things to culminate in moments like these. For it to go my way tonight and our team's way, after the work we put in all year and the work that I know those guys do day-in and day-out is really special. So it feels great, but we still got some work to do. They're a great ball club, they really are, and so we'll have to come ready to play tomorrow, we know they will, and so we'll see what happens this next game or two.