AL DIVISION SERIES: MARINERS VS ASTROS

October 10, 2022

Adam Frazier

Minute Maid Park

Seattle Mariners

Workout Day Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for Adam Frazier.

Q. It must be nice to give Seattle this new opportunity to have a postseason game after so long. What's that mean to you? What is, in your opinion, what Seattle must do in order to defeat a very powerful Houston Astros team?

ADAM FRAZIER: Yeah, very excited about being able to give the fans and the city of Seattle a home playoff game. I know something they have wanted for a long time and us as players have wanted as well. So we got to take care of business here, couple games here in Houston, tough place to play. We know they're a really good team. We played 'em a lot throughout the season, so we know what they got. Play good baseball, you got a chance to win. So one game at a time.

Q. What have the past 48 hours been like for you, just all the text messages and the reaction from family and friends over what happened over there in Toronto?

ADAM FRAZIER: A lot of excitement to get through that crazy Game 2 like that. I think us as a club was trying to process just exactly what did happen, but then, yeah, to get a hit to change the game, my phone's been on fire. I spent all day yesterday responding to people.

Excited that we were able to get two days off, though, because I think coming off of that to be able to get that extra day is huge recovery-wise for the body and the mind. So it's a good refresher today, get our feet wet here in Houston, and then hit the ground running again tomorrow.

Q. I'm curious about Luis Castillo. We saw the start the other day and the handful of starts he's made since the trade, but you probably have a deeper history playing in the National League with him. What made him such a tough at-bat when you saw him over on the other side?

ADAM FRAZIER: Oh, I think everything you saw the other night's what made him a tough at-bat.

But playing against him, being in Pittsburgh for all those years, him in Cinci, faced him a lot, and it's 97 to a hundred that moves a couple 3 feet, and then he's got straight one that is a hundred miles an hour to go with an elite changeup and a slider. So it's not like he's just throwing either. He can hit locations anywhere in the zone with all three pitches.

When you add all that together it's, you know, strap it on and good luck. That's basically what it was back then and what it is now. So he's a lot of fun to watch and we're really excited he's on our side.

Q. You mentioned this is a tough place to play. It's about moving forward. But how much can you guys take what happened in Toronto with confidence and momentum and bring that here to Houston?

ADAM FRAZIER: Yeah, Houston's a fun place to play. Maybe I should have said that instead of tough. You live for the packed houses, the atmospheres like what we experience in Toronto. We know it's going to be more of the same here in Houston. It gets real loud. It's a dome. I'm sure the roof will be closed. So we're excited about that.

More so you're playing against the team, and not the fans. So we know they play a pretty strong brand of baseball, so we got to play good ball to win. Play clean baseball, you got a chance.

They have also been sitting at home for a week, so I'm sure they're feeling fresh, but at the same time, timing may be a little off. So hoping for that and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Q. That was one of the greatest comebacks in postseason history. At what point during the game did you think, we got a chance to win this thing, and how were you able to slow the game down and come up with that huge hit in the top of the 9th inning?

ADAM FRAZIER: Probably after Carlos's homer, really got us within three, I guess. With our bullpen, we knew we had a chance. It was a rough start for us as a whole to begin the game. Gausman pretty much shut us down. I don't think we had a hit until the 5th or so.

So once he hit that homer, we were back in it, and it was one at-bat at a time at that point. But, yeah, in the 9th it was, I don't know, I felt pretty calm. We had a game plan against him, and I got a pitch to hit and luckily found a hole.

So, yeah, I don't know, it was a lot of fun, just go up there and trust your eyes, trust your hands, and react, and that's what I did.

Q. Going against Justin Verlander, you guys went 1-5 against him this year. What makes him tough and what are you guys thinking mentality-wise into this matchup?

ADAM FRAZIER: Everything makes him tough. He's a Hall of Fame pitcher. He's been doing it for 20 years or so. He knows how to pitch. He's got good stuff. He's kind of like Castillo, he throws upper 90s and he can move the ball around the zone wherever he wants, and then -- he's a pitcher.

So you just got to try to hit the mistakes, foul off the tough ones and hit the mistakes. We've gotten to him a couple times, so we know what to expect. I think being able to face him throughout the year is going to help us because -- that helps you with any pitcher, I guess. But, yeah, so looking forward to that challenge tomorrow.

Q. You were pretty open at the early part of the year about how you were struggling a little bit and trying to find yourself. I'm curious what the next few months were like for you mentally and able to kind of find your footing again and how much you appreciate it now having kind of been the Game 2 hero, one of the Game 2 heros?

ADAM FRAZIER: I don't appreciate the struggles at all. But it's been a grind all year, really. You feel like you're going good, you line out a couple times, maybe don't get a bounce your way. It just feel like it's been a roller coaster.

So let's just compete now, go out there and compete, see what happens. Try to get all the swing mechanics and thoughts out of your head and just go compete. That's where I'm at.

Q. On J.P.'s double, he spoke of looking back and seeing you hauling around the bases. Did you kind of find an extra gear on that play? Was that the fastest you've ever run around the bases? What was your thoughts during that whole play as it unfolded?

ADAM FRAZIER: I don't know, I just put my head down and ran. Two outs there, you're going on the swing, and then I see them converging together, so if it fell, I was going. I knew the turf in Toronto is pretty bouncy. For them to be able to field that cleanly would have been a challenge.

And then, unfortunately, they collided and Springer got a little banged up there. But it bounces over Tapia's head, and then Manny's swinging his arms, so I never slowed down.

Yeah, I knew what that run meant, especially -- for that ball to fall, it was everything for us. Yeah, I wasn't planning on stopping unless -- they were going to have to make a play to get me at home.

Q. Before the series in Toronto, so many guys talked about not knowing what to expect because they hadn't been there. What are some of the things that have been learned about the postseason and playing postseason games with this group?

ADAM FRAZIER: I mean, it's one pitch at a time, which it's like that all season. I guess it just gets amplified a little bit. But it'll take a little more out of you because it's that more, you're more locked in, everybody's more locked in, the crowd's in it. You just feel like there's that much more energy.

But other than that, it's still baseball. So you might have a little excitement, nervous energy in Game 1, but once you get your feet wet, it's just a baseball game with a packed house, which is what you want anyway. So it's just one pitch at a time.

Q. You guys as a team over the past two-plus months have hit a ton of homers. How important has it been from guys like you at the bottom of the order to just get on base so that if you keep the line moving that eventually you guys will do some damage with runners in scoring position and everything?

ADAM FRAZIER: Yeah, I mean, it goes back to knowing your role. Obviously, I'm not the home-run guy, so I just do whatever I can to get on base.

But, yeah, to keep the line moving is kind of something we talked about all year. Not just our team, when any team does that, you're going to be in position to win a game.

We got five or six guys in the lineup that can leave the yard at any point. We got 20 or so homers, and that's good for us. That's real good for our offense and it's a dangerous. It makes us dangerous in the postseason when we can -- we're not a big strikeout team, so we can keep the line moving, as you said.

Q. Scott talks about you kind of having opinions on a lot of things during the game and mound visits and things like that. You're in it. You are watching everything very closely. What do you like about this team right now where they're at?

ADAM FRAZIER: Yeah, I mean that's how you get guys out and stuff like that. You're paying attention to how they're swinging, what they're doing. But what I like about this team is everybody's all in together. We've been like that pretty much all season. We're very close knit. We bring the energy. Everybody's fighting for one another and supporting one another to get the job done. It's not like myself or any one other guy's got to be the hero. It's more that keep the line moving mentality. I think that we're just supporting each other and rooting hard for each other every time somebody is in the box. So that's why I like where we're at with that. And I think that's why we won a lot of games this year.