NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS DODGERS

October 11, 2022

Jake Cronenworth

Dodger Stadium

San Diego Padres

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. You guys have been trying to chase the Dodgers down for a couple of years now. I know your manager has preached everything is even now. What do you think about this latest crack at the Dodgers?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: Yeah, I think build off what Bob said. 0-0 right now. Obviously, they're a very good team. Best record in baseball. Won the division. We have to come out and play really solid baseball and hopefully come out on top.

Q. Jake, your first playoff experience was in 2020. Obviously, nobody is in the stands. Probably a little bit different atmosphere. What was your take-away from the first series in New York?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: It was fun. Obviously, 2020 was a little different with no fans, but to get in that atmosphere on the road and have those fans cheering and booing some of our guys -- you'll see that tonight too -- it's definitely fun.

Q. Sorry to bring this up, but the end of the season didn't go very well for you. The New York series didn't go great. What's next for you here? What did you take from that New York series?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: The series is over. We're back to 0-0 again. Felt like I had some good at-bats, built off some of the stuff. Obviously, we were playing a team that we're a little more familiar with now, so feel good in the box, feel good in the field. Just support these guys any way I can.

Q. Joe said after you guys won in New York that he used that moment with the substance check to motivate a little bit, add a little fuel to the tank. Asked Bob a minute ago about being an underdog in the last series, this series, all those things. How much a factor is that in terms of you guys using it, leaning on it, or do you at all with that kind of stuff?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: With the moment in particular?

Q. Yeah, just being underdogs or people picking other teams. Is that a factor?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: I think in general, we won 89 games. We didn't win the division. We didn't have the most successful year. We were up and down the whole year. Not a ton of winning streaks. Not a huge losing streak. It was just one of those years we just kind of remained the same the whole time.

Yeah, we're at a point where we're in the playoffs. We're here in the NLDS, and we have nothing to lose.

Q. Hey, Jake, do you think there's any sort of advantage for you guys, the fact you're coming off a big emotional high in New York, that you have been playing where the Dodgers have had six days off?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: Yeah. I think you can look at it from both sides. They've had time to rest, rest the pitchers, all those position players. As well I've had time to rest. We played three pretty strenuous games in New York in a tough atmosphere, but I think one thing for us is as a group we came together those three games on the road.

Won the first night. Lost the second night, and to win the third game to kind of bring us closer, get some big hits, and just get everybody in the dugout, has a ton of energy.

Q. You talked about the closeness of this group, the resiliency. Obviously, a season with a lot of different story lines, ups and downs. Is there a stretch of this season, a moment in this regular season that you can point to when this group really came together inside that clubhouse?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: Yeah, I think we all wish it would have come earlier, but I think it was with 18 games left when we got our butts kicked in Arizona. Bob got mad for the first time. (Laughing.) We played the next three nights like they were our last games of the year, and we kind of rolled from there and rolled into that series against the Mets on a high.

Seemingly, I would like to say we came together as a group more in New York, but I think really it was that Friday night in Arizona.

Q. What's it like when Bob gets mad? Because he is not a guy that gets mad very often.

JAKE CRONENWORTH: (Laughing). It's interesting because you don't see it much. I think it was the right time and right place to kind of light a fire under everybody, and it seemed to work.

So if he needs to get mad again, I wouldn't be mad.

Q. Is that part of the reason that he is as effective as he is, kind of understanding the situation?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: I think he understands the atmosphere we're in, where we're at during the season, when to turn the switch, when not to. That was the right time to do it, if ever.

I think we only had 18 or 17 games left. That was a stretch. I think we were only a couple games up in the second spot or maybe even third spot at the time in the Wild Card. It kind of propelled us forward and put us in the situation we are now.

Q. You guys played error-free. You guys played clean baseball in New York, and you did a lot of the little things right. How did you see the team come together in terms of that, and how important is it to continue against a team like the Dodgers doing that?

JAKE CRONENWORTH: I think if you look at our season as a whole, I think there's two things we've done really well, and that's pitching and playing really good defense to allow to keep ourselves in the game.

I think in terms of us coming together, it was those big hits, whether the guy who came up didn't get a hit with a runner in scoring position, it seemed like the next guy came up and picked him up. Whether it was that inning or the next inning, it just seemed like everybody was pulling for each other in the dugout. Even if you were 0-for-4 with four strike-outs or not having the best game, it seemed like if that guy got a hit, you were on top of the world.

Thank you, everybody.