AL WILD CARD SERIES: MARINERS VS BLUE JAYS

October 8, 2022

Scott Servais

Rogers Centre

Toronto Blue Jays

Pregame Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Mariners manager, Scott Servais. Any opening comments?

SCOTT SERVAIS: Typically I've got something about the game that we just played. We're into the second season and really excited to be here. Our group is fired up.

Long travel night last night getting in here, but you never know today. Energy is high, and it should be. This is something we've waited for for a long time and worked very hard towards.

We're excited. Our fan base is excited, and ready to get after it tomorrow, so I'll take any questions.

Q. (Off microphone)

SCOTT SERVAIS: Guys are excited. That's the biggest thing is you try to get -- certainly we had our challenges getting through the last few games trying to stay healthy. It's amazing when you get to Game 163, the first game in the postseason, how everybody feels much, much better.

That's adrenaline. That's the rush of getting out there, going through a workout, knowing what's ahead of us tomorrow and the challenge that is ahead of us. I think that's the biggest thing.

All teams react differently to it. This is our first go-around here with the Mariners in quite some time. Many of our players have never been in the postseason before.

Fortunately, we have a few that have been. Those are the guys you really lean on. That's who the other players lean on. Carlos Santana. Robbie has been around a little bit. They understand what it's like and kind of the wave of emotion that goes on through a playoff series.

The adrenaline is high. Our guys are ready to go tomorrow.

Q. You were 29-39, I believe, at one point.

SCOTT SERVAIS: Yes, we were. Thank you for reminding me.

Q. It got progressively better from there. If you had to isolate one or two things that allowed you to get to where you are today, what would they be?

SCOTT SERVAIS: It's a question I've gotten asked a lot here over the last few weeks, and we were at a low point in our season. From my seat any time you get ten games below .500, it's the danger zone because it's so hard to get back up above .500 again. Certainly aspirations and goals are to get into the playoffs, and you know you have to get there.

You really have to take it a game at a time, but at that moment we were in the middle of an offensive drought. We were really having a hard time scoring runs. Specifically hitting with runners in scoring position.

We had a very beneficial team meeting, hitters meeting, and I just called the guys out and asked them to talk. I think it's really important that you listen to people and listen to our players, but you can only do that if you give them the platform to talk.

I forced our guys, what do you got? What do you think? What's going on here? And let it go. I just sat back and let those guys discuss where we were at.

It did not turn that day. I wish it would have. We got shut out that day. I felt so good coming out of the meeting. We got shut out.

We went on a road trip. We started getting it going. We won 5 out of 6 on that trip, and towards the end of that trip we got into a little bit of a brawl over in Anaheim. I really think the combination of that meeting, understanding we were starting to play a little bit better, now when you come out of -- when you have a ruckus like that with another team, oftentimes it galvanizes your team and really brings them together. That's what I saw from our team at that point.

We started to roll. We started to do more things offensively. Our pitching really carried us. Our starting pitching has been so good throughout the year.

When you are in every game -- and we play a lot of close games -- we have an ability to figure how to win them, and we won a lot of close games.

Q. Would you be willing to give us an idea what the lineup looks like tomorrow, and how close are you to finalizing that roster?

SCOTT SERVAIS: I think the roster is pretty well set. We'll definitely release that and let you know where we're at with that.

I think the lineup, you know, will be pretty similar to what we've seen all year long. There may be a little bit of an adjustment based on the opponent you're playing and what it looks like they have to offer out of their bullpen and what not.

We'll post all that stuff tomorrow, and you guys will get a good look at it in the morning.

Q. When you watch the postseason, it appears that the bullpens take on added influence. Do you believe that? Can you talk about how your bullpen may be built for a short series like this?

SCOTT SERVAIS: There's not a team in the postseason that doesn't have a good bullpen. That's how you got there. You have to win close games. The Blue Jays have a very good bullpen. Every team in the postseason have a good pen.

I love our pen. It's been the anchor of our team. It was last year along with our starting pitching this year. It was a complete pitching staff effort that did it. We lean on those guys a lot.

That group that we have continues to evolve. You see the roles change a little bit. I think we've been very creative in how we use guys.

You try to get your best pitchers in the highest leverage spots. It sounds easy. You don't always know when those leverage spots are coming or the highest leverage spot is coming. There's some challenges there.

When you have multiple options, you have to feel good about who you send out there. I like our guys a lot. I trust them, their ability to strike people out, their ability to get ahead in the count, make pitches when they have to make them. We play good defense behind it, and that's what it takes.

Yeah, the decisions you make, when to go to bullpen, how frequent to go to bullpen is critical at this time of year. It really helps if you have a deep pen, and I believe our pen is very deep.

Q. You said yesterday that Julio was made for the bright lights; he revels in it. When did you know that he would flourish on such a stage? Was it early on in spring training, Home Run Derby? When did you know this kid rises to the occasion when all eyes are on him?

SCOTT SERVAIS: If you go back to Julio's season, he certainly got off to a rough start. I talked often on how impressed I was of how he handled things when they weren't going his way. Then they started to turn, and you saw the confidence grow and just take off.

I think if there was a moment for Julio, the first home run he hit down in Miami against one of the better pitchers in the league, he carried that on. He had a great series in New York against the Mets. I thought that series was a lot of fun for our young players. The environment at Citi Field was awesome. We ended up winning that series.

Then it started to kind of take off from there. The Home Run Derby, it surprised me a little bit that he handled it as well as he did. Not only handled it; he reveled in it. It was awesome.

I think when you look at young players and what gets thrown upon them in this league, and certainly with an organization that we hadn't been in the playoffs in so long, but he puts his arms around it, and he is the guy -- and I've often mentioned -- he is the guy that grabs the flag, charges up the hill, and everybody runs behind him.

He has a ton of confidence. He is a great player. I'm looking forward to seeing how he reacts in this environment here because I think it's going to be very positive, and he will continue to lead our team.

Q. Home field advantage was talked a lot about in the end of the season and this race for home field advantage. Rogers Centre hasn't had playoff baseball since 2016, and the last time it was pretty crazy with the bat flips and the walk-offs. How do you prepare such a young team, such an inexperienced team in the postseason, to face that environment that should happen again tomorrow?

SCOTT SERVAIS: It's a good question. It's one you have to be aware of.

I think you have to understand -- I make the comment to our team, coaching staff, expect the expected. There's going to be adversity. There are going to be things happen that maybe don't go our way.

The Blue Jays have a very good team. If you expect the expected, you know there's going to be momentum. Momentum shifts throughout the course of a game, an inning, what not. I think the most important thing is you recognize the moment you're in. We're in this moment. How do we get out of it? How do we turn the momentum back in our favor?

It's usually by doing the little things that allowed you to get here because if you try to do big things, it typically doesn't work well. You do little things that allowed you to get here.

For us it's having good at-bats, keeping the line moving. It's taking a walk, getting a single, and trying to just have a good at-bat, and all of a sudden something big happens and then you get on top of it again.

I think the biggest thing, you talk about young teams or teams that haven't been in the playoffs for a long time, you keep it small. You stay committed to doing the things that allowed you to get here, and you'll be just fine.

I think it's one of the things that I enjoy. I enjoy being a part of the environment like this. I know our coaches are excited. Our players are as well. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Q. That sweep that you guys had of Toronto in Seattle back in July was maybe the low point for this team. I'm just wondering from the scouting reports you've gotten and from what you've seen, how different a group is this right now from the one that you encountered back then?

SCOTT SERVAIS: The Blue Jays team?

Q. Blue Jays team.

SCOTT SERVAIS: We haven't played them in a long time, and every time you get so different as the season goes on. We had a number of come-from-behind wins in that series. We did sweep the series. I thought that was a series that was pivotal for our season moving in the right direction.

But, again, the Blue Jays have a very talented roster. The lineup, very productive offensive team. I think their bullpen has gotten healthier. They've been able to sort that out. They've got a very good bullpen. The back side of their bullpen is one of the best in the league. There's no question about it.

Everybody says, oh, we played well against these guys early or we match up well against this team. When you get to this point in the year, teams are so much different than when you were a couple of months ago.

They've had a heck of a run. To the question earlier, they were able to secure home field advantage. Is it an advantage? Yeah, it's an advantage. No doubt about it.

I've said about our team, you know, we certainly respect everybody. We don't fear anybody. I think that's fair to say. I think a lot of teams say the same thing. We're looking forward to it. Jays got a good club. We have a good team.

Q. You obviously have tomorrow. You have four starters. Can that change how you slot it out from two to three games, or are you locked on who you want to start two? And if you have to start three, how do you want to do it? Or could the results of Friday change what you want to do with your starters?

SCOTT SERVAIS: It could. I think right now we're lined up. We'll certainly go Luis Castillo tomorrow. The plan right now is to go Robbie Ray after that and then Logan Gilbert in Game 3. That could change. It very well could change.

We also have George Kirby in the wings, and George has had a fantastic season. Rookie year. He has been one of the better pitchers in the American League in the last couple of months. He will play a role in this series. At what game, what juncture he will insert himself in, I'm not quite sure yet. The game kind of tells you.

Between George and the rest of our bullpen, the starting rotation, the strength of our team is our pitching staff. There's no question about it. Got a lot of confidence in any of the guys that we put out there.

Q. You were just talking about how different teams are over the course of time. So, how different are you from the last time the Blue Jays and their fans saw you the first week of July?

SCOTT SERVAIS: We're quite a bit different. We have a right fielder now that was out almost four months of the season. In 2021 Mitch Haniger was probably our most productive offensive player, and we missed him for almost the entire year. He is back, healthy, and ready to go.

Every team deals with adversity. You lose players throughout the year. That's probably the biggest difference with our club is you take and insert him in the middle of our lineup.

Looking at our team, there's always going to be hot and cold streaks with certain players offensively and how they're going, but I think the other thing that has really emerged is our catcher, Cal Raleigh. He has had a phenomenal two months.

What he has done with the bat in August and September, the late-game home runs. We certainly saw a big one Friday night to get us into the post season. Those two guys playing a pivotal part in our offense is different than maybe what we were like the last time we played the Jays.

Q. Here in Toronto the talk all season has been about they missed by one game last year, and that served as a huge motivation. You guys missed by two games last year. Here we haven't heard you talk about that, but how much did that do for your 2022 season?

SCOTT SERVAIS: For our team it was a big push to get us where we're at today. It really ended with our season at home. The last three games or four games we played at home last year, I believe there was 45,000 people in T-Mobile Park.

Our players hadn't experienced that before. I think they talk about back in the day when the Mariners were rolling, the late '90s, early 2000s, and what the city was like and the fan base was like and just how rabid they were. They loved baseball.

It flipped a little bit certainly with football and the Seahawks and what they had done in town. What stood out for our players and certainly me was how passionate our fan base was that last series. They all got behind.

I remember the game. They're holding the "Believe" signs from the Ted Lasso thing. That was kind of the theme for our team last year was continue to believe. I know a number of our players felt that. A number of them expressed it publicly at the end of the season that we were going to, so to speak, break or end the drought in so many words is how they put it.

It was a rallying cry for our team all year. Once we got close to realizing that we were going to put that behind us, I think it's super important to focus on the ultimate goal here to win a World Series. To do that you have to beat the best teams, and sometimes you have to do it in their ballpark, and that's what we're ready to do.

Q. You referenced the strength of your pitching staff. Specifically with Luis, how good do you feel sending him to the mound in a Game 1 tomorrow and the opponent, the opposing starter, is the caliber that he is? How good do you feel sending Luis out there?

SCOTT SERVAIS: I feel very good. Thank you to our ownership group and our front office for signing Luis Castillo and then signing him long-term.

Any manager in this game understands the value of high-end starting pitching. It just gives you a chance to win every night. Luis certainly does it.

He has the ability to go down and shut down any lineup in any given night with his stuff. It's not just his stuff. There's a lot of guys who throw hard and have great movement. It's his competitiveness behind that. He wants to be the guy. He revels in that. He enjoys it.

We quickly saw it when we acquired him. His first outing was us against the Yankees in New York, and he dominated the game. And he did it again against them a week later in our ballpark.

He likes the high-end competition, and he certainly has the ability to go out and execute a game plan and keep his emotions in check along the way, which is really important.

I couldn't be any more confident in sending anybody out there. Any of our starters really. I feel really good about it, but when you have a high-end guy like that, the fact we traded for him, we just signed him to a long-term deal, it's perfect timing.

Q. On the heels of that and the way you were glowing about Luis too, did you know that about Luis Castillo, or did you learn it along the way? And or can you give us some insight about what you learned about the guy you are going to have take the ball in Game 1?

SCOTT SERVAIS: We have a couple of his former teammates on the team with Geno and Jesse Winker. When his name started to be mentioned in trade discussions, both those guys came to me and said, this is a dude. In player terms, he is a dude.

For me now you start looking at video and you start looking at his stuff. I had never seen him pitch in person before we acquired him. We heard the name. You look at the numbers, but when you start looking at him in video and how he executes and how he competes and how his stuff works, all the pitches work together, it's pretty exciting.

Not only that, we've seen an uptick in his stuff since he has been a Mariner. The velocity has been as high as it's ever been for him. The movement on his pitches. All the metrics, they're trending in the right direction. That's really exciting.