NL WILD CARD SERIES: PADRES VS METS

October 8, 2022

Bob Melvin

Citi Field

San Diego Padres

Postgame Press Conference

Q. Bob, what was the struggle for Blake tonight?

BOB MELVIN: Just throwing strikes. What did he have, six walks? Limited the damage for as much traffic as he had out there, but one of the few games we've seen here recently where he wasn't as proficient at throwing the ball over the plate.

Q. Talk about the decisions in the seventh inning, why go with Morejon?

BOB MELVIN: We were comfortable with him. You're not going to get your matchup with Lindor switch hitting and then we were going to take him through McNeil and try to turn Escobar around. He didn't throw strikes either.

Q. It being where it is now, one game on the line what are your thoughts going into that with Joe on the mound?

BOB MELVIN: We feel good. Joe's thrown well for us all year. We're in pretty good shape with our bullpen as well. Yeah, I think this team takes a lot of confidence with Joe.

Q. Matchups with the velocity tonight. What did you think of some of the at-bats that you guys had?

BOB MELVIN: We made him work. He made some pitches when he had to, started leaning -- you mean talk about Jake? Started leaning on his slider there towards the end. You know, the lefties were trying to push him away a little bit. Righties were trying to get him close to him.

But he changed kind of what he was doing midstream there and started going to his breaking stuff and ended up being effective. Probably got one more inning than it looked like he was going to have as far as the pitch count went.

Q. When Manny is chasing certain pitches like this, is that Manny trying to do too much?

BOB MELVIN: That and I think Jacob is pretty good about throwing the fastball away and extending the slider off of it. I think he pitched him pretty well.

Q. First two innings, Jacob deGrom was tough, and then after that you guys were trying to get some runs off him. How good was he?

BOB MELVIN: Well, he came out throwing 102 -- 101, 102. So obviously he had a good fastball early on. But I think what made him effective later on was he changed what he was doing, started leaning on his slider a lot more and kept us off balance that way.

Q. How much were you hoping for multiple innings in that spot for Morejon when you put him in?

BOB MELVIN: We were. Escobar was going to be kind of the deciding factor on where we went, but Lindor bloops one in, gets a hit to right, and then two walks, and trying to get a lefty out, couldn't do it, so ended his day.

Because of the fact that we didn't cover much with Blake, we were going to obviously try to extend Martinez as we did too, and we were going to potentially try to do that with Morejon.

Q. Obviously Josh Hader hasn't pitched in this series yet. Getting the ball to him, I think you talked yesterday about Suarez kind of emerging as the eighth inning guy. What kind of a challenge do you anticipate that being if you get the chance to --

BOB MELVIN: Tomorrow he's going to be in this game, and Suarez potentially multiple too. So our two most effective relievers will be part of this tomorrow.

Q. The Mets have shown a willingness in the first couple of games to challenge you guys on the bases. What gives you confidence that tomorrow you'll be able to control their running game?

BOB MELVIN: Joe's a little bit quicker to the plate. He's tougher to run on. He's probably our best as far as controlling the running game. He fields his position well, does a lot of the intangible things that maybe we weren't as good at here in the first couple games.

Q. I'm just curious, from your perspective as a manager, what's different about going into a winner take all game that's at the end of a series versus just a one-game winner take all?

BOB MELVIN: Well, because there's a couple games that's played ahead of it, and there's some -- it's more like a regular series that is tied up at 1-1, as opposed to just going into one game, it just feels a little bit different because baseball is played in series.

Q. Can you elaborate on how it feels different?

BOB MELVIN: You get into the flow a little bit. You know how the other team's playing. There's a little bit more of a pulse to a series than one game. So we come into a deciding game, but there's obviously been a lot of at-bats and a lot of different strategies involved and getting to know the team a little bit more as well.

Q. You worked your starters tomorrow and you should have your bullpen set up nicely for tomorrow. Where does that leave you going into a decisive game?

BOB MELVIN: We'll feel good. Obviously we would have liked to have done a little better tonight. It was a close game there in the middle innings. It got away from us in the seventh. We put some really good at-bats together in the ninth to put some pitches on some of their guys.

Look, it's winner take all tomorrow, and I think they'll probably extend their guys even though they pitched some today as well.

Q. Kind of to A.J.'s points, were you surprised at all the way Buck used Edwin tonight?

BOB MELVIN: Not really. I think he was going to try to get him through the seventh and then the middle part of our order in the eighth and see where it ended up.

No, he's done that before, I think with him getting them through the middle of the order.

Q. A couple of things. I imagine nine walks and a hit batter in a game where you could clinch a series is not what you wanted, huh?

BOB MELVIN: No, usually we're pretty good about throwing the ball over the plate. Early in the season Blake had a little trouble with some walks. Here recently, not as much. But they made him work, and we ended up not having our best game as far as free passes.

Q. And back to your decision on the use of Morejon, when you had the ten-pitch walks back to back, was there any consideration of maybe cutting it short and getting another lefty in to pitch to McNeil?

BOB MELVIN: No, we had him on McNeil, and we were going to go righty after that if that was the case. Originally we were going to potentially go more than one inning with him.