NL WILD CARD SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS VS BREWERS

October 4, 2023

Torey Lovullo

American Family Field

Arizona Diamondbacks

Postgame Press Conference

Arizona Diamondbacks 5, Milwaukee Brewers 2

Q. Torey, you were managing this team in 2017 the last time you reached the postseason, six years. To kind of show you how hard it is to make it back to the postseason to be here in this moment where your team is moving on, what is that time kind of thinking about what it would feel like mean to you right now?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, that's an unbelievable question, right? You lump up the last six years. Considering what we've walked through and the dark times that we had, this is a pretty special moment. There's a lot of emotion inside of this organization, inside of this clubhouse right now.

2017 was a magical year. We had some great players, and it was just a different time. The players that have cycled through our system that have learned our values and morals are here on this stage performing. It makes it a little more special.

I've known these kids for five or six years as they have been developing in the system, and it is a true connection. That's what I'm thinking about right now when I get asked the question what's the difference between that time, this time, and the six years. It's the dark times coming out the other end and then celebrating with kids that I've watched basically grow up right before my very eyes.

Q. Torey, you never know how a young team is going to respond to its first trip to a playoff setting as a group, and it seemed like the last two nights, there were just a series of kind of fulcrum moments that could have tipped both games in each direction. It seemed like your team won almost all of those moments. What does that say about how ready they were to seize this opportunity?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah. First of all, you're not sure how they're going to respond on this stage. It's a very, very big stage, but we've been talking about training yourself and getting into a mental state from Spring Training on about being able to execute in the most critical time and have success.

Success doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to throw a strike and get that strike out or get a base hit. It means I'm going to be in control, I'm going to control what I can, take some deep breaths and execute at the highest level.

For me, that's all about preparation. So as I watched the past couple of days unfold, falling behind yesterday, pushing back against a really true number one starter in Corbin Burnes, I felt like we were capable of doing anything at any time. That had shown me a lot.

I will say for the first four innings of today's game, we were absolutely shut down by Peralta. Our starting catcher goes out. You talk about adaptability and resiliency. That was in the forefront of today's day more than anything. Our guys were tough, and it was a young group that stepped up.

How they do it and how they learned it, I'm not sure, but I think they were ready for this through all the things we were talking about training them with over the past four or five years of developing them.

Q. The Brewers were able to kind of get Zac's pitch count up really early in this game, and we've seen in the postseason this year and in years past that can be a moment where a manager pulls the plug early, especially when the games are so tight like that. Where was your confidence level in Zac that he would be able to turn things around and that you would be able to get as much out of him as you did tonight?

TOREY LOVULLO: My confidence level is always high with Zac. I know through the five years that I've known him, there have been a couple of clunkers, and they were very identifiable, but I can count them on one hand.

I felt very strongly that knowing Zac the way that I did that he was going to rise to the occasion and start to make some pitches and start to sequence pitches and get in a rhythm, which he did.

I will tell you this, and I will share this, I don't know if you guys had a chance to talk to him. He walked by me after the first inning, and it was an almost like a don't-you-dare comment said, I'm giving you seven today if you give me over 100 pitches. I said go ahead and show me, get it done. He came close, but he really stepped up and started to make pitches and gave us a chance to catch our breath.

It's too early, and then it was five shutdown innings in true Zac form. My confidence level is very high because he has often given me his best, and I knew that was what was going to happen today.

Q. Eighth inning, they load the bases, and you not only make a pitching change, it almost felt like you changed momentum.

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah.

Q. Can you talk about that moment tonight?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah. I asked a lot of Kevin Ginkel yesterday. He went two innings, 30-plus pitches. I knew that there was a chance that his stuff would back up a little bit today. In talking to the pitching coaches as we were watching him do his work, I could tell that he was a little gassed out.

I felt like we had an understudy in Andrew Saalfrank who has joined us over the past two months of this season who has been throwing the ball really well, ready to take the reins and kind of establish himself in a young moment. What are you going to give me? Are you ready for this? He had given me -- in every outing prior to this, he had given me every reason to believe he was ready for this opportunity.

In my opinion, it's just my opinion, I'm a very young manager when it comes to playoff experience, I think I might have said it pre-Game 1 that stopping momentum and stopping these big runs is the most important thing in playoff baseball, so you have to do some uncharacteristic things. That's what I felt was the need. I trusted Andrew Saalfrank, and I just wanted to change the mojo and change the momentum, and it worked out well.

Q. The quality of at-bats you got out of the nine hole in this series in the last two days, last night in the ninth especially and then today that got you going with the 0-2 to a walk to start that rally.

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah. Geraldo Perdomo has been doing it all year long for us. He continues to grow and learn. We've got -- you go around the diamond. There's 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds, and they play just well above their age.

I was talking to Perdomo about that, and I said, hey, we need you on right here. You get on something, something could happen. He's there for a reason because if we turn over the lineup and he is on base and we know he sees pitches and draws a lot of walks, we feel like we're going to score some runs. I feel like he knew what that at-bat was asking for. You're right, it went from 0-2 to 4-2. He has done that a lot for us, and I think that was the difference in the game obviously.

Q. A couple of things. First, just real quick, how is Moreno and what happened with him there? I mean, we saw what happened, but...

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, he is doing okay. He is not in the concussion protocol. I think they're running some tests on him right now, but obviously it was a back swing, and it's just part of the game.

By no means was Turang trying to do it. There was no malicious act. It just happened. But Gabi just for a second or two there, he felt like he was a little dizzy and then when we were visiting with him on the mound -- or at the home plate, he started to feel a little bit less dizzy, and he said I want to stay in this game. Please don't take me out of this game was basically what I remember.

I remember telling him, look, at any point in time if we don't like anything that we see, I am going to remove you from this game. So he completed the inning and was examined by our team doctors, and they felt like it was too risky to run him back out there.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the next series. How fitting is it and how exciting is the challenge that not only have you advanced to the next round, but after your last appearance in that round facing the Dodgers that that's who you get to take on.

TOREY LOVULLO: We know the Dodgers very well, and it's going to be a great challenge, but I know this team is connected, and I feel like this team is very dangerous when they are connected.

I believe in them. They believe in themselves, which is the most important thing. So we're going to take it one game at a time. We respect every opponent, and we know the ins and outs of their lineup. We know the ins and outs of their changes, their coaching staff, the stadium. We know it all.

So we're going to walk into a pretty big environment once again, and we'll see how these young players step up, and I believe they're going to get the job done.