NL DIVISION SERIES: PHILLIES VS BRAVES

October 6, 2023

Kyle Schwarber

Truist Park

Philadelphia Phillies

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. You have seen those guys so much and seen their pitchers. Who in your opinion do you feel has a better advantage from facing each other so much?

KYLE SCHWARBER: I don't know. This is going to be two really good teams that are going to be going off against each other. A lot of history, two great pitching staffs, two great offenses.

It's going to be a dogfight. We're going to be prepared. We're going to be ready. I'm sure they are, too. And we're looking forward for the challenge, and hopefully we'll see what happens in Game 1 and go from there.

Q. Hey, man. How you doing, Indiana. You know, you talked about last year the energy in Philadelphia and that feeling that was just something you'd never experienced, you know, the postseason to that level. Can you describe coming out of the Marlins series sort of what that was like and the temperature you're taking of the Philly fans?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Yeah. I mean, talk about a great first way to open up the playoffs, and the atmosphere that they had in Philadelphia, and it's just an extra element for us when we do step out there onto the field.

Obviously the team is going to -- we're going to square off toe to toe, but when you have that extra 46, 47,000 behind you, it just makes it another extra element for us that we attach ourselves onto. And it's just an element for the other team to have to look through.

Q. First, I want to say congratulations for another great year. When you compare your win with the Cubs in 2016, you compare that team to this team that you guys have, what's the difference of this team?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Every team is going to be different. We're different from what we were last year. And there's a lot of similarities in the fact of that we all have the mentality that we want to go out, and we want to grind, we want to win.

We want to perform, and it doesn't have to look -- you know, it doesn't have to look great. At the end of the day, it's just trying to find a win. And that's what we're going to try to do.

And there's going to be a lot of differences, you know, just different players, different personalities, different situations that are going to come up through the course of a game. But, you know, I think the common denominator here is just the way that we're going to prepare and the way that we're going to be ready whenever we do step on that field. And it's just going to be us going out there and competing.

Q. Kyle, wonder if you could just talk for a minute. What do you guys talk about, and what do you guys think about when you see Strider? You've seen him a lot now. What's usually the conversation like and how do you attack him?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Yeah, you know, he's got an electric fastball and has plus off speed pitches off that electric fastball. So I think the biggest thing for us is trying to get him, one, in the strike zone. Two, when he is in the strike zone, we do take that swing and we don't want to miss it. That's going to be the biggest thing.

He gets a lot of swing and miss and a lot of foul balls on pitches. That's going to be a thing for us to figure out, one, is that we want to find a way when he is in the zone to, one, make contact, but also quality contact, too.

And if that's -- whatever people are thinking about how they want to work in the cage, that's how they're going to attack it. We game plan specifically for each pitcher. It's not just a whole series game plan.

Everyone has a different game plan against every single pitcher, if it's going to be Strider, Fried, you know, whoever it is. We all have these different game plans, and we're going to work in the cage to attack the way that we want to.

And so, yeah, the biggest thing is, one, try to get him in the strike zone. Two, trying to take those tough sliders that are out of zone or not biting out of the zone, making him work in the zone and making him come to us and try to get us out in the zone.

Q. Kyle, just a bunch of superstars on both teams. To see them all on the same field, on this state, what do you think it is going to bring out in everybody?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Yeah. I mean, it's a really cool -- I guess you look at it on paper, really cool series on paper, right? And I'm sure a lot of people wish that this could be a seven-game series and it could be a five, but I think it's going to be exciting baseball.

You obviously look on our team and you see all the guys that we have on our team and you look over there and you see the Acuñas, the Olsons, the years that they've been able to have. It's going to be a fun series. That's going to be the biggest thing. And I think there can be a lot of moments in this series, and we're hoping those moments are going to be on our side and keep carrying momentum.

Q. Kyle, you mentioned five versus seven games. What did you learn last year about the rhythm of this postseason from three to five to seven? It seems like, I mean stuff just happens so fast, from clinching the regular season to clinching the wildcard to being here. What did you learn last year and can you take anything away from that?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Yeah, I think experience is key to a lot of things, right? When you're able to draw back on experience and you're able to learn on experience, that's going to be huge. And we had a lot of experience last year, one, and two, we brought in a lot of key components that have either, one, been in it or, two, got the taste of playing meaningful baseball in September, clinching and then playing meaningful baseball in October.

So we're -- when you can draw back on that experience, one, knowing what it's going to take to win a postseason game, how hard fought it's going to be until the end, and you know, it can be just that one little mistake that you want to take advantage of. Yeah, but the games are the games, right? Going into a five-game set, you know that you gotta win three somehow, someway. And yeah, it's going -- everything is going to be fast pace, right?

Obviously you see it in a three-game set where everything is kind of do or die and everyone is going to try to put out the stoppers and then you get into a five-game set, and it can kind of be like that as well, especially with the extra off day here in between games. So we'll see how everything plays out in the series, but looking forward to it.

Q. Kyle, you're a tremendous power here. Atlanta hasn't played in the last six days. Do you believe for kind of a power lineup like the one in Atlanta, that that's something that could impact, not being able to play in the last six games, the last six days?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Yeah. You know, I think it's going to be another thing for them, too, where they were able to do this last year, where you know, they had that time off and they were able to probably draw back on experience about what could have gone differently, what could have done this or that.

So for us, we're planning on that. This is going to be them at the sharpest, right? It's postseason baseball. That's what it brings out in everyone. We're not planning on them coming out flat. We're planning on them coming out firing on all cylinders just like we're going to be coming out firing on all cylinders. And it's going to be our job to go out there and find a way to, one, stop it, and two, find a way to get a win.