AL WILD CARD SERIES: BLUE JAYS VS TWINS

October 3, 2023

Kyle Farmer

Target Field

Toronto Blue Jays

Pregame Press Conference

Q. You've played in a few playoff games in your career. Do you still kind of get the jitters of a first game? What was it like waking up today?

KYLE FARMER: Yeah, I mean if you don't get nervous for these games then you don't truly love the game. So I think the locker room is all fired up. A little bit nervous, but I think that comes with these big moments. So I think everybody's ready. It will be a lot of fun today.

Q. In a short series, in playoff games where things are fast to begin with, how do you think you'll navigate or manage the pitch timer, and how do you think that will affect you guys?

KYLE FARMER: I think we did it pretty well this year on the Twins side. We didn't have too many pitch-clock violations. I think we're used to it. In these games, every little small moment matters and everybody is watching.

I think people might lose track of the pitch clock in these series, which will be kind of interesting to see. But I think we're used to it. And I think MLB did a great job breaking it in this season for us.

Q. Given you guys have such a mix of veterans and young players on this roster, how do you keep the young guys that have been key to what you've been doing -- like Royce and Wallner and Kirilloff and Julien -- how do you keep them grounded in this?

KYLE FARMER: Keep doing what you've been doing all year. Edi, all the young guys walked in, smiling, having fun. We kind of do our normal routines that we normally do. I think you just gotta kid around with them a little more usual and not take it too seriously.

Those guys have a good personality, as you know. They're a lot of fun. I don't think any moment is too big for them, like I said before, which is why I think they're good.

Q. Knowing Sonny as well as you do, what do you think helped him get to this level of performance and sustain it all year?

KYLE FARMER: That's a good question. Sonny is very -- his routine is very important to him. And he stuck with it all year. He's done such a great job with it.

This is the most locked in I've seen him in the past. I've spent three seasons with him with the Reds. And this year, he's just a different pitcher, he knows what's on the line for him and the team. This is the most locked in I've seen him.

He's going to compete tomorrow, which is going to be fun to watch.

Q. With Julien's defense early on, there were questions about it, but he's gotten solid more as the year has gone on. What are your takeaways, what's the difference with that?

KYLE FARMER: Just his work ethic and how hard he's worked at it, and us giving him a lot of crap about it as well, just kind of wearing him out about how bad his defense is.

And I think it's more of a bigger brother kind of thing, picking on a little brother getting him going and forcing him to get better. He hates coming out of games for defensive replacement.

We just wear him about down about coming out of the game. Young kid, never seen a kid come out in the seventh inning. I think that struck a fire and I think he got a lot better.

Q. What's it mean for you guys to get Royce and Carlos back today when the games matter the most?

KYLE FARMER: Everything. Royce is the spark plug of this team. AL Rookie of the Month in September with six home runs. That shows how well our September went with him in the lineup. He kind of carried the offense.

Carlos coming back is a great defensive player, great hitter, all-around great player.

So I think both of them back in the lineup is going to give us a slight edge.

Q. With Rocco, with all the substitutions, probably has been a little difficult to adjust at first. But what's the key? Why did guys get so much better during the second half of the season?

KYLE FARMER: I think just as of anything, the more you do it the better you get. We kind of started figuring out our roles. Some guys would start for three days, then take three days off, come in pinch-hit.

I think with our bench depth and the way that Rocco uses the roster, I think everybody just got used to it and they can kind of see the game unfolding before it happens. And that kind of gets us ready. The more you do it, the more you get used to it.