AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS VS ASTROS

October 11, 2023

Rocco Baldelli

Target Field

Minnesota Twins

Pregame 4 Press Conference

Q. What is A.K. dealing with, and when did it present itself?

ROCCO BALDELLI: A.K.'s dealing with the same issue that he's been dealing with for a long time. It's just progressively been getting worse to the point where he really can't swing at this point. He's battled through it. This is the issue with the shoulder that shut him down for a long period of time this year.

We got him back to a reasonably good spot. He was never back to anything I would call 100 percent or close to it, but he got back to a point where he could swing, but we had to keep his workload light and kind of start there.

That's why late in the season he was not playing every day. We would take him out of games. We were getting him enough where we'd keep his timing kind of down, but we didn't want to overuse him, knowing that this was something he was dealing with. It just got worse.

Q. What do you guys kind of expect Byron to be able to do? Are you looking more DH, pinch hitter, or could he go into the outfield if needed late in the game?

ROCCO BALDELLI: That's clearly the question everyone is going to be wondering about, not one I'm going to go into great detail on. Anyone that's followed our team has -- knows what he's gone through this year. We think right now he's at a good enough spot where he can help us, I would say, probably in smaller spurts.

I think everyone knows what that probably means, could be a big at-bat. Could be going out there to a run for us in a particular spot. I don't think there's going to be a lot of bulk to the work that he could put in, but he's available to us, and he's a very dangerous player and a guy that can make things happen on the field.

I would probably leave it at that. That's kind of the way I'm generally thinking about it. I don't have one or two spots in my mind right now yet that I'm thinking about. This kind of came together pretty quickly with the move that we had to make today.

Q. Besides Donovan, how do you potentially handle first base?

ROCCO BALDELLI: I think it's not perfectly lined up, but Julien can play first base if we need him to. He can clearly go over there. One of the most reliable players I've ever been around is Kyle Farmer, and he can go over and play first base even though he hasn't played a whole lot of first base in his career either.

So I think we have some options that we could go with.

Q. Is there any longer term concern about Alex? Obviously he's been dealing with this for a while now.

ROCCO BALDELLI: I think we're going to get through these playoffs, get him looked at, get him evaluated again, probably get him more tests before anyone knows the true answer to that.

I would definitely lean on our medical staff to give an update on that. Really we're talking about yesterday during the game, him getting to a point where he really shouldn't be out there, where he shouldn't be swinging.

So we're talking less than 24 hours ago we started to really contemplate taking him off the roster. It just kind of happened. We haven't touched the question of exactly what he's going to be doing, but it's something that's coming soon that we're going to have to figure out.

Q. Is this a day where you take the temperature of your clubhouse considering how big the game is?

ROCCO BALDELLI: Our staff does a good job of always doing that, but the answer is yes to one level or another. I put on some music on my speaker in my office, so everyone that walked by would have to walk by some music on the way in the door today, when they came into the clubhouse. You want to know what was on the speaker?

Q. I was headed in that direction, yeah.

ROCCO BALDELLI: I figured you were. It was King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Everyone can go look that up now if they even care, but it was blaring, and they're good.

Q. What did you learn about Byron last year, just playing on one leg a lot of the time?

ROCCO BALDELLI: He's as determined as any player I've ever been around. He's dealing with -- he has dealt with things that other players, many players probably couldn't even contemplate dealing with, and he's dealt with it, generally speaking, there's been a lot of ups and downs, but he's dealt with it pretty successfully, and he's very strong-minded.

Many players, they deal with an injury in their career, and it becomes a very big deal mentally and physically, and it can affect them. Many overcome these things. He hasn't dealt with an injury or two, he's dealt with a lot. I'm not going to document what he's dealt with, but it's been kind of routine that he's had to deal with it on a daily basis through much of his career.

He's still determined. He still shows up ready to give it everything he can possibly give every day. And he's put himself in a position where we can activate him, where I probably would have said that was very unlikely, if you asked me at some point in the recent past. It's through his work. It's through his hard work. As I said, determination.

Q. You've had a lot of guys working out with you guys over the course of these playoffs. What made a presumably limited Buck the right call in this circumstance?

ROCCO BALDELLI: It's a tough question actually because we have guys that have been active that have been playing that have been playing pretty well too, that we could look to.

I do think this series that we're playing right now, it's a unique type of series. We're playing -- I've said this before about the Astros, but the way they approach the game and their team itself, the roster makeup, doesn't have the normal back-and-forth of a series that you would anticipate in most playoff environments. There's no lefties in the bullpen. There's not a lot of moves to be made.

We have today, just talking about specifically the game today, which matters most. This is what matters -- this is the only thing that matters. We have Matt Wallner not starting today. He's on the bench. Trevor Larnach has been playing great. He was an option to be activated. We're adding two -- we would have basically two very, very similar players on the bench today.

I think Buck gives us some kind of an alternate look and an alternate explosive option that he can go out there in certain spots and do big things. So that's really -- that's it. That's really all it comes down to. It's not that much more complex. He's a different kind of player capable of different things.

Q. A couple days ago, I think in Houston, you said that Buck had not yet run to demonstrate his health. Has he now done so to your satisfaction? And how aware were you that A.K. was dealing with something as this has gone on?

ROCCO BALDELLI: I've been aware on -- I can answer the A.K. one pretty directly. I've been aware the whole -- since he originally hurt his shoulder. That's not something that ever went away. Everyone was very aware of what he was dealing with.

One thing we don't bring up every day is there's a lot of guys dealing with a lot of different physical things, some of them pretty serious, and they're still playing, just like A.K. was until yesterday. Sometimes you hit a breaking point where you just can't physically do the job anymore, and I think these last couple of days were that point for A.K.

Buck has not run that much, but he's run enough for him to give me the double thumbs up that he's ready to run if we need him to run.

Q. Rocco, Joe Ryan faced Houston a couple of times earlier this year; Urquidy faced you guys, but it was so early in the season. Is there anything to take away from those games, or is it two completely different things at this point of the postseason?

ROCCO BALDELLI: I think both pitchers have gone back and thought about their previous outings, and hopefully -- I think both starters are going to try to learn something from what they've already seen. All that said, these are different games, and these games are well removed from those last starts.

So I think there's going to be some new nuance that kind of involved in the way that they're going to approach what they're doing. Our team looks different. We have a different ball club than we had last time around. And I'm sure Joe is going to try to bring in some new tactics this time around too.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some adjustments on both sides.

Q. How do you want Joe to approach it, as far as maybe saving stuff for later, like to try and get through the lineup a couple times? Is this more of an empty-the-tank kind of approach?

ROCCO BALDELLI: There is nobody in our room saving anything for later, including Joe Ryan today. So right at 'em.