AL WILD CARD SERIES: RANGERS VS RAYS

October 4, 2023

Kevin Cash

Tropicana Field

Tampa Bay Rays

Postgame Press Conference

Texas 7, Tampa Bay 1

Q. Kevin, understanding the suddenness of it just ending, how frustrating is it to go out without you guys playing your best?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, it's frustrating, but it's part of the game.

Q. Especially offensively?

KEVIN CASH: I'm glad we scored a run because if not we'd have been talking about that a lot.

Look, our bats just didn't come to life. They pitched really, really well.

Q. Did you see any sort of consistent theme from that at-bats from the guys? Didn't seem like there was more strikeouts than usual or anything. Just guys pressing maybe?

KEVIN CASH: That's fair. Look, Evo is really good. I know his stuff had been down, but he dialed it up. So no consistent theme.

Q. Building on that, what did you see exactly from Nathan Eovalde that allowed him to do what he did today?

KEVIN CASH: Just mixed really well.

Q. What did you see from Eflin today?

KEVIN CASH: Got on a good run, made some nice plays behind him, and then they had some good at-bats, and the big two-run homer from Carter was pretty crucial. That fifth inning where I think he gave up one run, he did such a tremendous job of navigating through that. Not a lot of hard-hit balls. But the damage was done ultimately in the fourth.

Q. This team has been very good in the regular season the past three years, underperformed arguably in the postseason all three years. Is there a common thread there? Is there something missing? Is it fluke?

KEVIN CASH: You've asked me that three years in a row, and I don't know if I have a good answer right now. We're going to continue to work hard. I don't know if it's a fluke or not.

I think the guys that we had out there were able to do better than what we did today. We'd like to continue playing, but I can't put my finger on one specific thing why we've been eliminated pretty quickly.

Q. Are there any positives you can take from the series, and if not, I'm sure there's probably some --

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, there's always positives, right? We've got some young players, they got some reps in a pretty intense environment, playoff baseball, and that is impactful. I'd like to think that we and some of those young players would all be better for it moving forward.

It stings a little bit right now, but hopefully they can revisit some of those thoughts and the mindset they had and make adjustments as needed.

Q. Did you have a chance to talk to the team or what will be your message?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, I just thanked all of them. Certainly you guys know the adversity that I feel like they overcame, it's a pretty special group. Want more for them than maybe what we got. But thank the staff, the support staff, and mostly the players for the way that they kind of held everything together.

Q. Obviously there was no excuse to play the way you did the last two days, but is one of your biggest regrets not having the same roster at the end of the season that you had at the beginning when you dominated for two months?

KEVIN CASH: Look, that's an easy narrative. We are who we are, and we finished the regular season with the guys that we had. I still feel that we could have had a better showing with the roster that we had.

Q. Just what is sort of the biggest takeaway for you personally coming off of this game and Game 1 when you combine the two together of just how the team performed?

KEVIN CASH: Game 1 of the season?

Q. No, Game 1 of yesterday.

KEVIN CASH: I mean, they just outplayed us. We probably didn't do ourselves any favors, but that's a good Rangers team over there, and we just got outplayed.