AL WILD CARD SERIES: MARINERS VS BLUE JAYS

October 8, 2022

Kevin Gausman

Rogers Centre

Toronto Blue Jays

Postgame Press Conference

Seattle Mariners - 10, Toronto Blue Jays - 9

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for Kevin Gausman.

Q. What was that experience like for you watching that after you had left the game, and where is your head at with that loss right now?

KEVIN GAUSMAN: Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, tough. The way we lost, you know, it's unfortunate. A lot of weird things had happened, unfortunate things. Obviously, George and Bo are okay, first off. I guess "okay" is relative, but nothing serious, I guess. First off, those two guys are okay.

But yeah, just a heartbreaking loss. Tough to watch. It sucks when you're out of the game, and you don't have any more say in it, right? You're essentially just watching and hoping.

Yeah, that was tough.

Q. You've signed with this team long-term. You're committed to this team long-term. What can you and this group learn from this, I guess, as tough as it is to process it right now?

KEVIN GAUSMAN: That was kind of Schneider's meeting, and the overall theme was we're just very fortunate to be in this situation. I think playing with guys like Whit, who played his entire career, and he only has two postseason games, and those were his last two days. Very fortunate to be in this situation.

Now we kind of know what to expect, right? So, those young guys that made the postseason in the COVID year, there were no fans. All of us who have been here and played in front of these big crowds, the talk going into the series was it's going to be different than opening day. It's a different animal.

Now those guys going into the offseason, they know what it's like. Hopefully that feeds their hunger and their competitiveness to not see someone dance on our field, right?

Just you take punches in the face in this game, and you just hope that those punches lead you in a direction to want to get better, want to get better, and want to just fine-tune some things and not let it happen again.

Q. Kevin, as you were watching, understanding you're not in the game at that point, but just when momentum seemed to swing to the Mariners there, just what was your feeling watching that and maybe the difficulty for you guys in trying to arrest that momentum that had swung their way?

KEVIN GAUSMAN: That's what postseason baseball is about. The momentum swings are even bigger in the postseason. You know, I was really happy that we were able to get the crowd in it early as opposed to yesterday, Luis Castillo just kind of silenced the crowd with his pitching. To be able to go out today and come out strong and take the lead. I mean, at one point we were up 8-1 at one point.

Obviously, I think about the 6th inning for me. A lot of bloop hits, but in my mind the thinking is looking back on what I could have done to not be in that situation.

Obviously, I got two outs, but if I could have just been a little bit better earlier in the game, maybe I have more pitches to kind of work with. That's on me, and it's frustrating to go into the offseason with what-if.

Obviously, hindsight is 20/20. If Tim comes in, he gets a ground ball first pitch, everybody is obviously -- that's baseball, right? Sometimes things don't go the way that you planned.

Just really sucks that we have to go home because there's a lot of really talented baseball players in there. Just a great group of guys, first off.

Love going to battle with them every single day. I have friends for life in there. Just a really close-knit group that I'm sad that we're all going home.

Q. You had to process a tough loss last year with the Giants as well. Just, obviously, a very different situation between the two teams, it may be hard in the moment, but how will you reflect on sort of the journey this team has gone and some of the ups and downs of the season culminating to this moment?

KEVIN GAUSMAN: We had so many things happen to us this season. Staff-wise, obviously, a managerial switch in the middle of the season. A lot of guys banged up battling things. It was just a tough year. The Yankees got out early really big. So we were kind of constantly chasing them.

Really, we only played to our level of baseball for the last two months. That's what's frustrating is that I feel like we're playing really good baseball right now, so it's tough to lose these two games and then have to go home because we've been playing so well.

Obviously, to lose the game the way that we did, like I said, just heartbreaking. But, like I said, this game will beat you up, and you try to learn from it. I've always said that you learn more in the offseason than you do during the season because you have time to reflect and really kind of hone in and watch video of yourself and fine-tune the things that you know that you need to be better at.

We had an unbelievable season. A lot of those guys in here missed out of the season by one game last year, and we won that one game, right? We made the postseason, so that's the goal.

There's a step-stone. There's a bridge. We're just right there. We just have to keep getting a little bit better, a little bit more consistent. There's a lot more from this club.

Q. You touched on it a bit earlier, but what did you learn from your young teammates this season, and what do you think they gained from what they went through, both through the whole season and again tonight?

KEVIN GAUSMAN: I think they learned that the Big Leagues is tough. Obviously, they all know that, but a lot of these guys had the COVID year, and that was kind of a wash of a season.

So I think some of these young guys don't necessarily know exactly what it takes to play 162 and to play as much as Bo and George and Vladdy and all those guys play. Obviously, George is a veteran, but I think those guys learned a lot from each other. I know Bo learns a lot from George. Vladdy is just kind of a different animal. He wants to be out there every single day. So does Bo.

Really, it's about keeping those guys -- you kind of got to back those guys off because they just love baseball so much. They just want to do more and more. I think the evolution for them is finding out ways to get their work in that's not as beating up their body.

Maybe instead of 100 swings a day, maybe it's 50 sometimes. I don't know. I'm a pitcher, so I'm just kind of looking at some of the veteran guys that I played with who had long careers.

You know, it's a learning process in this game. It's hard to be a young player in this game. From day one of spring training, the expectations on this club were sky-high.

We've been playing this entire season with the expectation of being in the World Series. Now we kind of know what to expect when next year those are the same predictions. We're all excited for that. Unfinished business.

Q. Just wondering after the talk last weekend about your finger and leaving that game early, how did that work for you today with the splitter and your other pitchers?

KEVIN GAUSMAN: Finger was fine. A non-issue really today, so it was good.