NL DIVISION SERIES: GIANTS VS DODGERS

October 14, 2021

Gabe Kapler

Dodger Stadium

San Francisco Giants

Postgame 5 Press Conference

Los Angeles Dodgers - 2, San Francisco Giants - 1

Q. I know all year you've been, you have not been one to talk much about umpire decisions, but that final check swing call seemed as if it really angered a lot of people. What were your thoughts on that and how did you see it?

GABE KAPLER: Super tough. Yeah, I mean, obviously you don't want a game to end that way. I know these guys work really hard to make the right call, so it's super challenging on our end. Obviously it's going to be frustrating to have a game end like that, but a pretty high-quality hitter at the plate that can climb back into that count, it's no guarantee of success at the end of the at-bat. It's just a tough way to end it.

There's no, for especially right now, there's no need to be angry about that. I just think it's just a disappointing way to end. There are other reasons we didn't win today's baseball game, so that was just the last call of the game and, yeah, that's enough.

Q. Doval was clearly throwing mostly sliders there and all sliders to Bellinger. Was that the plan or -- I know Bailey went out there. Was there discussion not to throw the fastball or did he not have the fastball tonight?

GABE KAPLER: No, I actually did think he had a fastball and I thought the slider was -- Bellinger wasn't able to get up underneath it until that one swing. So I thought it was a fine pitch call. The slider's been an effective pitch for him for quite some time. Fastball's been an effective pitch as well. So not going to second-guess the pitch call there.

Q. We can't be inside the clubhouse right now. What is the emotion like and is it more a mix of anger or frustration or is it just disappointment in how this has come to an end?

GABE KAPLER: I think there's like a combination of still processing the game and thinking about the moments that we would have liked to have seen go differently, and then I think there's quite a bit of, I think players really care about each other. I think the staff really cares about each other, and I think the staff and players care about each other as well.

So there's expressions of appreciation for a job very well done and an incredibly successful season that at the very end just came up a tiny bit short, and I think this is the appropriate time to just share that the Dodgers pitched really well in this series and pitched really well in this game and you got to tip your cap to the work that they did. They beat us.

Q. If you haven't already, or maybe you will, what would you want to emphasize to your players about the season they had, and obviously a tough ending, but a great season.

GABE KAPLER: Yeah, I think the unselfishness that this team showed throughout the year, the trust that they showed in one another was second to none, better than any season that I've ever been a part of as a player, as a coach, in any position in baseball.

I just respect the hell out of a team-first mentality. I've never seen it like this. This is the best I've ever seen. So if there's a message, it's continue with that and we're going to build on this season and be better because we have that foundation in place, that foundation of trust and unselfishness.

Q. Do you think he checked his swing?

GABE KAPLER: It looked like he didn't go. I mean, that was my take on it.

Q. You've mentioned how well the Dodgers pitched, but you wound up not scoring any, four runs in the first game was the most that you had and I think the batting average is probably below 200 for the whole series. Were your quality of at-bats what you wanted to see and you just didn't get breaks and they pitched well? How would you assess that?

GABE KAPLER: I think in hindsight you can come off or comments can come off looking like making excuses about what happened. I mean, Darin Ruf had two balls that he smoked on the nose early in the game. That happens. It's part of baseball. So you don't expect all those to go your way.

That ball that Craw hit to left field on a line, Mookie was right there. Donovan Solano hits a ball down the third baseline, Justin Turner's right there. That's just part of baseball and I don't think it makes any sense to throw your hands up and say, I wish this was different in any way.

I thought we had some quality at-bats throughout the series. At the end of the day they made more pitches than us. And, yeah, I mean, this is what the postseason is all about. You're going to face the best pitching. Everybody's going to be well rested. You're not going to get like through the best pitchers in a pen and then get to poorer pitchers because they're all good.

I think our bullpen was a really good example of that during the season. By the time we got to the postseason, all of our pitchers had really good numbers in our bullpen. We had a high-quality bullpen. The starting pitchers that we threw out there were high-quality starting pitchers. The Dodgers can obviously say the same, as can the teams around the league right now.

So you get into the postseason, you're going to face really kick-ass pitching and then you're going to need to be on your A-game offensively. And I actually think we put good at-bats together and we just weren't able to get the job done.

Q. First of all, Logan Webb, can you comment on how he pitched deep into the game? And the second part of that question is, how difficult is it when you are facing a pro like Mookie Betts? He seemed to be the guy that got to him, but really the only one, to a degree.

GABE KAPLER: I don't think Logan could have pitched any better. Mookie Betts is one of the game's best players and in the biggest moments he brings his best. His swings were really good. He had a really good feel for Logan's changeup and even had some good passes on other pitches. I still think Logan pitched excellent even it Mookie. Mookie just got the job done. I don't think there's much more than that.

Q. Although Doval ended up giving up the go-ahead run, I think he caught a lot of people's attention just with how calm he is, the electric stuff, the fastball, the slider. Just how does being able to kind of have this platform and kind of bode for him going forward as he continues to develop?

GABE KAPLER: Yeah, I mean, look, we can think back to the middle of the summer and his struggles in Colorado, and not just that outing, but others, and those made him who he was at the end of the season. He was able to call back to those experiences in big moments and sometimes moments of failure.

I'm going to have a chance to talk to Camilo here in the next, probably tonight, and share with him what a tremendous, tremendous job he did. He was continuing to get in the strike zone. He was continuing to make pitches. Sometimes even when you do that, the other team can get enough of the baseball to get it through the hole like Gavin Lux did or put it on the grass like Cody Bellinger did. That's part of it.

But he's got a really, really bright future and a lot of that has to do with what you mentioned, that calm, easy demeanor coming to a game like that, getting a big out against Trea Turner, going back out there, getting the first out of the inning against Will Smith on a slider, continuing to fill up the strike zone. Obviously I think he would like to have the fastball in to JT back. That was a fastball, right? Yeah, he's going to be not just fine. He's going to be good.

Q. Obviously every playoff game, every do or die playoff game, is going to be tense, but this game, I think we all felt that every out, every at-bat meant something. What was that like to go through just from the first inning on for yourself, for your coaching staff, and the dugout, what was this whole drama like for you?

GABE KAPLER: So watching Logan Webb pitch is sort of where I go in my mind. At every stage you're asking yourself, is Logan Webb the best option to get the next three hitters out? And every inning that we sent him out there we felt like, yes, yes and yes, he just continued to be the best option.

Look, there wasn't a whole lot to do in this game in terms of we did do some pinch hitting obviously. We felt really good about the matchups that we ended up getting. Austin Slater got a couple of reps at Julio Urías and we were able to kind of pinch hit for Tommy La Stella and get that, a really good bat in the game and a guy who took some good swings off Julio as well, but then also kind of upgrade our defense a little bit, given how Tommy has run out of gas a little bit on D with the sore Achilles tendon.

So a lot sort of went right for us tonight and I think we were in a really good position to succeed and win this game and it turned out that they just got a few more hits than us. And I think we had -- players were in really good positions to succeed tonight and they did in many ways. And this is baseball. It's what happens. They just beat us.

Q. You guys played them 24 times this year. You each won 12 times. We know how close it was at the end of the regular season. What do you make of just the season as a whole against the Dodgers and how close this series was?

GABE KAPLER: Yeah, I thought we were really tough in the games against the Dodgers all season long. I thought we were really tough in tonight's game as well. Yeah, I think the character of the team, independent of the talent of the team, really shined in our games against the Dodgers and some of the things that we talked about when we played the last game of the season, that grittiness and that toughness and that unselfishness and some of the vision. It just all came together in those games against the Dodgers.

They played really good against us as well. So rivalry is great, obviously, and clearly in good shape and already, I'm not saying we're turning the page to next year. I think that's not true, but what I'll say is we're excited about building on this foundation.

Q. Live and in that moment, you saw the check, you saw the appeal, were you shocked that that was the call or what was the initial emotion?

GABE KAPLER: I mean, the immediate emotion is frustration, right? That's happening all throughout the game and it's heightened on the last play of the game, right, on the last, in this case a check swing of the game. That's going to be the thing that is talked about quite a bit and I understand why. I'm way, way past the frustration that I felt in that moment, and I really do think our players and our staff are too. I just don't know how much sense it makes to, for us, on our side, to pick that apart. I don't know how much, how helpful it's going to be.

Q. It would help my story.

GABE KAPLER: Help your story? Well, you probably have a little bit from me now and I would bet a lot of players are going to give you something for your story as well.