MLB WORLD SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS VS RANGERS

October 31, 2023

Torey Lovullo

Chase Field

Arizona Diamondbacks

Pregame 4 Press Conference

Q. Offensively, is there some adjustments to be made here, or was it just a bad night offensively?

TOREY LOVULLO: I think every night is different, given who you're going to face and what kind of stuff they have.

We've got our target. We know the place and spot pitches are going to land. We got the information very late last night as to who was going to be their starting pitcher, but everyone went to work on it.

They'll come in today, start to get prepped about where to go, with their mindset, where to set their eyes and make adjustments from there. So that's usually what happens every single day.

Now built inside every day, I think, there's adjustments that need to be made. You've got to get your sight lines and see what happens per at-bat. Things are not going to be the same every single time.

And it's World Series baseball. You've got to be spot on. You can't miss. You've got to hit the pitch that you're looking for and not miss that opportunity.

And I think some of the pitching that we've seen has been really good. And it's been a little frustrating for us at times, but it just takes one good line of guys to get that thing moving in the right direction, and we can put up some big numbers.

And we did that in Game 2. I'm not going to predict anything and say we're going to do it again. We just have to have quality approaches, quality mindset. Keep our competitive focus and go to work.

Q. Going back to that Walker play from yesterday, I know you've already talked about this. Obviously it was a really good throw from Adolis Garcia. But I'm curious, do you feel like with maybe like the best slide of Christian Walker's life or something like that, he might actually get a chance to beat that?

TOREY LOVULLO: It's hard for me to say. I know you always look at things and break it down in slo-mo. And we talked sliding directly into bases, not kind of hand tagging and sweeping unless you're actually beat by a throw.

And I know he was trying to do that. I think there were a couple of things that we have to tighten up. I talked about them -- maybe a read, a little better read, maybe picking up the third base coach. We'll figure that out and get it done in a much better, higher level today. But I think Walker did all he could by trying to get in there.

Q. In Game 5 you'll have Zac going again. He's had some good moments in the postseason but hasn't really been himself three or four, five starts. What do you think has kept him from being as good as he can be?

TOREY LOVULLO: We've got to remember that Zac spoils us. He goes out there and goes five, six, seven innings every single time. And inside of that he might give up two or three runs, but we're so used to him giving up zero or one runs.

He is a human being. He's going to have some good and bad moments. I think the reason why we're seeing him in this point in time probably not throwing up nothing but zeros is command of his pitches, command of his secondary stuff.

I know he's aware of that. He'll tell you he doesn't feel 100 percent, but he goes out there, competes and battles. He can't just walk out there and get the job done because of his name. It's the time of year where everybody's really, really good and really and really prepped.

Just gotta be more efficient with his pitches, where they land and sequence them in the right way. And he's working on that right now.

Q. When you say not 100 percent, is he hurt at all or just tired, just doesn't feel --

TOREY LOVULLO: No, no. Did I say 100 percent? I forget what I said.

Q. (Indiscernible).

TOREY LOVULLO: I did say that, but I probably meant it totally different. He's a hundred percent healthy, 100 percent engaged and 100 percent spot on.

I'm probably saying we haven't been able to get 100 percent of what we always expect from Zac. But his 80 percent is pretty damn good, too.

Q. Had you have needed to use him last night was Kevin Ginkel available to you?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yes, he was. Everybody was fully available yesterday.

Q. Does the uncertainty around Garcia, potential injury play into the decision to start Mantiply?

TOREY LOVULLO: A little bit. We've used Joe before. I've used him as a leverage lefty. We feel like starting a lefty will set their lineup a certain way, and we can counter punch it keep working through that.

It's not a mystery that Joe -- he's not going to throw six innings get a certain point in their lineup and then we'll start to maneuver.

We don't know what that lineup is going to look like. It may or may not have Garcia in it. And it's going to be a challenge no matter what with either Grossman or Jankowski as the understudy. We'll continue to prepare the best we can.

But I think the potential for him not playing changed our outlook as to who is starting.

Q. How fresh do you feel the bullpen is (indiscernible) pretty quick innings out of Nelson and Frias --

TOREY LOVULLO: They're gassed up and ready to go. I know Frias went one and two-thirds, and it was 22 pitches. It was a small concern. We asked to go out there for three more batters, but he's a big, strong kid. Everybody is ready to go and gassed up.

Q. The calls there in the ninth inning on Moreno, did they bother you any less that the second one may have been a makeup for a missed one early on? And I guess how did you see those calls to Nathaniel Lowe earlier if you went back and looked at those?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, I looked at it all. I was up at 3:30 this morning steaming mad. So I'll leave it right there.

Q. We've talked about this before, but what's your preference? Would you rather have a fourth starter here than go to a bullpen game? It's a necessary evil. You did it in the championship series. A couple of years ago, Atlanta/Houston, there were multiple bullpen games because of shortages of starters. What would you rather have?

TOREY LOVULLO: Drysdale, Gibson, Koufax, Gooden, you name it. Let's start right there. (Laughter).

Starting pitching is a premium. We know that. And if you've got quality arms, we're going to use them. We just feel like there's a balance there where there might be a drop-off with some of the starters that we do have or potentially could use here. And we think that the changing, the matching up, is going to be a much better way for us to navigate through their lineup at this point in time of the year.

It's not traditional at all if you're looking at baseball through the 2005 lens, through the 1995 lens. But I think when you have to make adjustments and you've got to be creative, this is one of those situations.

Of course, I'd love to have four starters. It would make my life so much easier. It's going to be a chess game. I love that game. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Q. For the future, I remember talking to Sandy Alderson about this back in the day. He said you need seven or eight starters now because guys are going to get hurt, guys are going to go down. Would your preference be for Mike to build up the starting staff so you're not in this situation in the future?

TOREY LOVULLO: I think that's always the design. We talk about eight or nine deep. We call them our eighth or ninth starter when we're having some of those meetings, and those are the guys sitting down in Triple-A thinking, am I ever going to get an opportunity.

Heck, yes, you are. At some point there's going to be a need, and there's going to be gaps whether it's injury or performance-based decisions will allow you to get in there.

We had two of our starters -- and I know, you look leap back into the Davies situation, and Bum was also another one, those were performance-based decisions where we felt we would have other options that would help us win baseball games.

We did budget for it. We did go eight or nine deep. Couple of them didn't perform. Couple of them got hurt. And we're in this box right now. We've got to deal with it.

Q. When you get to the bullpen game stage of a best-of-7, do you find this game itself a bigger challenge or the game after a bigger challenge?

TOREY LOVULLO: Probably the game before is the biggest for me. And doing what we did and getting through it the way we did, I know you were asking that earlier question, gives me a great sense of relief knowing that we're fully gassed up bullpen.

So Brandon Pfaadt did a great job pitching into the sixth inning yesterday. And it's awfully nice to know that Zac Gallen is on the back side of it of it because, like I said, he's usually five or six innings at least on his worst day.

I think yesterday was most critical. Today is a like a puzzle. It's a lot fun. That's how my mind works. I'll have a thousand conversations between now and the time the game starts with people around me that I trust and understand what I'm going to be looking at from the dugout. And I'll start to piece it together.

Really, it is like a game of chess. There's a game that's happening right in front of you, but you can't get clipped on the other side of the board. I like that. And I'm looking forward to this.

Q. Going back to the calls yesterday, as a player, maybe when you were a player, how hard is it to kind of come back the next day with that completely flushed?

TOREY LOVULLO: It's a new day. It's a new challenge, new opportunities. And I know that this team was probably looking at it last night the way I was before I went to sleep. And it got me. And I'm here to say that it was a real feeling.

But I told myself that when I walked in here today, it's not going to be anything I'm going to consider or carry around with me. I can't. This game's too hard.

We need to move off of it and move on. I know everybody walking into this clubhouse will feel the same way.