MLB WORLD SERIES: ASTROS VS BRAVES

October 27, 2021

Jake Odorizzi

Minute Maid Park

Houston Astros

Pregame 2 Press Conference

Q. How do you assess your outing last night? And with how much you were used, how do you think you can be used for the remainder of the series?

JAKE ODORIZZI: Yeah, it went well. Just wanted to come in and keep the game where it was at, give our offense a chance to be within striking distance. So I think I was able to do that.

As far as getting back in there, I'd say a couple days to recover, and then we reassess and see where we're at from there. Hopefully, when we get to Atlanta, I'll be good to go by first or second game potentially.

And then it also goes off where we're at as a bullpen at that point too. I think that will be pretty telling as well. If there's max six more games to the year, I think we're all pushing our bodies to the limit at this point.

Q. Can you kind of just compare how you feel today as opposed to the day after the outing against the Red Sox?

JAKE ODORIZZI: Yeah, I feel better today. I had a little more prep time, so that always gives you a little bit of normalness to it. I'm feeling better today than I was the Red Sox game.

Yeah, I think we just as a group, I don't know if anybody really feels 100 percent anymore at this point. We just have to do what we can to get through it and be prepared to go out and do our best in these situations. These are big outs the rest of the year for us as a pitching staff. If one guy has a rough day, we have to pick him up in whatever way possible.

I still like the spot we're in. As a team, we had a lot of missed opportunities yesterday as a whole group. It's one game. We didn't come out ahead, but I think we're in a really good spot moving forward.

Q. Jake, you clearly gave this team a boost in the Championship Series. Your teammates talked about that when you came out cold out of the bullpen and kind of took on that burden. What do you hope that you gave them last night not only chewing up some work, but getting after that Atlanta lineup, which is absolutely red hot right now?

JAKE ODORIZZI: Hopefully just the blueprint. We try to keep it simple. Really just go out there and attack, try to get them to put the ball in play.

I think a lot of teams get in trouble in the postseason by trying to be too fine in certain instances, and then guys don't chase. You're in hitters' counts. An offense that's clicking at this point is a tough offense to get around to even when you have your best stuff and you're locating.

So try to limit them on having comfortable at-bats, I think is the main thing. I just wanted to go out there and attack them, see what their approach was off of me. And Framber's different than I am too. So mentally they prepared for a left-handed sinker baller, and I come in with a different look.

Hopefully, we can take what we saw yesterday from the bullpen in general. I thought everyone else that came in after me did a phenomenal job as well, and we look to build off that as a team.

Q. How well do you know Rosario? Just when he's in a zone like this, I guess what do you see from him, playing with him for as long as you did in Minnesota?

JAKE ODORIZZI: I know him well. We played three years together. I got to see every aspect of his game -- offensively, defensively, base running. There's a lot of good to it. I think right now he's extremely hot. I mean, he's making plays in the outfield. He's swinging a very hot bat right now.

I was out there facing him, I kind of knew in my head what I needed to do to attack him. But he's different. You can make really good pitches, and he might miss them. You can make a pitch five inches outside the zone and up, and he might hit it a mile. It's just a matter of execution when it comes to it. You've got to keep him moving around, keep him off balance.

You just have to treat him like anybody else. You can make your pitch, whatever it might be, the results are going to be that. But he's going really well right now, and I've seen him do it many times throughout my time at Minnesota. Now that I'm on the other side of it, I hope it comes to an end as quick as possible. But I definitely have seen it firsthand.

Q. Framber had said last night that he thought he was overly amped up and overthrowing and pitches were flattening out a bit and sailing high. Is there anything that older pitchers can say to young pitchers to get them to stay within their routine, or is it just pitching in a World Series for the first time, naturally that's going to happen to younger players?

JAKE ODORIZZI: I think it's to each their own. This is my first World Series. This is his first World Series. The way I approached it was I was honestly way more calm yesterday than I was in the ALCS against Boston. Circumstances were different.

But from a mental standpoint, I honestly felt like I was just in the moment, like it was a regular game, and I was comfortable. I think it's just trying to tunnel it down, simplify it in every aspect.

Everybody's different. I've always been a very even-keel person throughout my entire career and not really feeding off of emotions, negative, positive, whatever it may be. I know guys prepare differently, and some guys, as we've seen with Framber, he threw eight excellent innings in Boston against a team when we really needed it. You would say that's probably a harder environment than it was a home game right here where you're playing many games and comfortable.

It could have just been that day. I honestly don't really know. Mental stuff in this game and just mental things in general, it's to each their own. We all know one thing for some person is different than one person for the next. For me, I try to stay even, stay calm, not get too high, not get too low.

We're going to see him again this series, and we expect great things from him. We were very confident with him on the mound yesterday. It didn't work out. It happens. But we have a lot of faith in him moving forward.

Q. Nelson Cruz is going to be here later. He just won the Roberto Clemente Award. Obviously, you played with him in Minnesota. Can you talk about the things he brings off the field, and are you surprised at all that he would have won this award?

JAKE ODORIZZI: I'm not surprised at all. My time with him was really great. He's such a great influence not only in the clubhouse, but the community as well. Obviously, he's getting recognized for that with this. It's a huge, huge award. I'll really happy for him.

One of my favorite teammates to be around. He was always very happy every day. Lighthearted, kept it loose. He's been through it time and time again.

From a clubhouse standpoint, he brings so much to the table just because of who he is to Latin American players, but not only that, but he can translate it to everybody.

It's really great because seeing a guy that's his age with that pedigree to work that hard every day, if that guy can do it at 40, 41, whatever he is now, 42 -- I'm not really sure, I haven't kept track of his birthdays -- it's pretty special.

And it shows you as a team, like this guy sets his examples by what he does with his words, his actions, and then he goes out on the field and produces it, and he's a great humanitarian off the field.

I love Nelly. I wish him literally nothing but the best. He's such a phenomenal person and obviously a great human on top of that too. So I'm very happy for him.

Q. You talk about the job that the bullpen was able to do last night. Do you think that the obstacles that you guys had to overcome in the CS with how much you were forced to work, did that help prepare you guys at all to face something like last night?

JAKE ODORIZZI: Maybe. I don't know if they really tied it hand on hand. I know we were all hands on deck that series, and things got pretty out of whack quickly. Maybe it was the uncertainty of it all, the panic, if you will, of we have so many bullpen innings to get picked up early on. Then guys stepped up in the series when we really needed.

So, yeah, maybe there's a carryover aspect to that in this series. At the end of the day, it's one game. We can go out there, and Jose can throw phenomenally today, and we'll be in a good spot, and hopefully none of that stuff matters.

I think there's something to be said about being battle tested when it comes to certain high-pressure situations, and we were definitely tested last series. So if push comes to shove, I think we'll be in a pretty good spot mid-series and see where we're at at that point.

Q. Dusty said that this group, that your clubhouse doesn't get rattled, there's no panic. I know this is just your first year, but what have you seen, observed from that group, from your teammates about how they approach adversity, losing games in the postseason, things like that?

JAKE ODORIZZI: I think there's just an expectation of winning here. It was pretty prevalent early on when I first got here. It was so different that this team has been to Spring Training, so four ALCSs in a row before this year.

Just the pedigree of all the guys, the work ethic, the expectation of we're going to win. It doesn't really matter what happens. Yeah, we might lose a couple games here and there, but over the long run, we're going to be a really good team.

Throughout the year, we didn't really go through too many scuffles because of that because we never really got too down on ourselves. There was no panic, no anything. We just stayed the course. I think having a veteran group like this that's playoff tested. They've won World Series, championships, won the division. There's definitely something to be said for experience.

A lot of the guys that have done it, they aren't that old. Between Carlos and Breggy and Altuve, it's pretty impressive that for guys around high 20s, that they've had this much experience. It really bleeds over to the younger guys too. They follow the lead of the older guys, and to have that as a steering -- you know, you're steering the team in this direction, and it just kind of breeds greatness, to be quite honest.

I think that's the best way to put it. After the game last night, you would have thought it was a May 2nd loss. It wasn't like it was a World Series loss. That's why I appreciate this team and the leadership on this team because they definitely know how to handle adverse moments, and I think you'll see our normal team come out today without any pressure on us.