MLB WORLD SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS VS RANGERS

October 31, 2023

Torey Lovullo

Chase Field

Arizona Diamondbacks

Postgame 4 Press Conference

Rangers - 11, Diamondbacks - 7

Q. I'm wondering, after a game like this, what you say to the guys? And then secondly, the way you came back, is that something you can take into tomorrow?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, a hundred percent. Hundred percent. This was a grinder. This was nothing that we saw coming. We've had guys that have been throwing the ball extremely well, picking up the baseball on defense. It all came unraveled on us there in a matter of two innings. And it's 10 runs.

So as you're dissecting it and looking at it, you fall down 11-1, and then you keep fighting. You stay connected. You commit to the plan and the process for 27 outs, and you close the game up to 11-7. Got the fans engaged. Got a ton of energy. Got their closer in the game. There was a lot of positives to draw upon, and I will.

But we've got to tighten up the things that we know that went wrong. And we'll do that. And then we'll come out tomorrow. And we've got to go 1-0 tomorrow. We've gotta play our finest game tomorrow and not worry about anything else.

It's an all-in mentality. And this team has done it every time I can remember they've never let one another down. And I expect that to be the same tomorrow.

Q. Speaking of positives, Ryne Nelson hadn't pitched a whole lot down the past month. He takes down 68 pitches in five innings, leaves a lot of guys untouched for tomorrow. How big was that moving forward?

TOREY LOVULLO: It was huge. I told him that when I was taking him off the mound. I wanted to make sure her teammates heard me say that without him, without his effort, without his commitment to staying ready, the disciplines that it takes behind the scenes to make sure you can go out there and give us 65, 75 pitches and keep us right where we needed to keep this thing so we're gassed up tomorrow in the bullpen, that was a true team moment.

Because of him we're going to be in a spot to use our guys tomorrow and hopefully win a baseball game. Without that we would have been in a really bad spot. And he sacrificed. I know he was gassed out there at the very end, but he sacrificed for the good of his team.

Q. Did you know that Nelson had five-plus innings in him. If so, would he have been an option to start this game? I know hindsight is perfect, but he did a great job and the first few relievers did not.

TOREY LOVULLO: I've been talking to Strommy about that over the past 4-5 days; if Nelson is needed what would he give us? He's assured me he's been ready. He's been throwing bullpens and touching feels and he's maintained a little bit of length -- not quite the five-plus innings that he gave us, but we felt he was going to be able to give us six pitches.

Yes, hindsight is 2020. You look at it a little bit different after you know what the outcome is. And maybe he was an option for us after an opener. Maybe he was an option for us to start the baseball game.

But he did his job and didn't surprise me. I just know there were some wobbly outings in the postseason, and we were trying to protect him a little bit and build up his confidence and get him in the right spot. And today certainly was that.

Q. Curious, wanted to get your thoughts on the job that Joe Mantiply has done for you, not just tonight but throughout the second half of the season, throughout the postseason and why you have such confidence in him to be an opener when you need to go bullpen game?

TOREY LOVULLO: I like the heartbeat. I like the dedication. I like the ability to execute. And I just thought he was going to be the right man for the right job there. And he did a really nice job.

Look, it hasn't been an easy year for Joe. He was an All-Star last year. Trying to duplicate that, make everything perfect. Didn't turn it out that way. Found himself in the minors grinding, and I know there were a lot of people around him coaching him up. He accepted that coaching and he's a dependable back-end reliever for us.

We switched his role today. I lost that ability to use him on the back end. But I thought that much about him that I needed him to get to go out there and get what started out as three up to six outs. And he was really good for us today.

Q. Just generally what are the challenges that present themselves with a bullpen game that don't present themselves if you do have a starting pitcher who is capable of going deeper into the game?

TOREY LOVULLO: The obvious ones, the way the game splitters, you've got to make some in-game adjustments and you have to think things through a little clearly about the best matchups.

I've got a ton of information that's really dummied down into one little thought, which makes me less dangerous. And I'm able to go out there and make what I hopefully will believe are great decisions to match up. So it's a game of matching up. And it intrigues me.

I know the players are ready for it. I think it intrigues them and everybody is race ready.

The challenges are to get the right matchups and get the right pieces in place. We felt like we did that. We just didn't execute. You could see what happened. They had their top three hitters have three at-bats before the bottom of our order had one at-bat. That's unacceptable.

Q. Kind of piggybacking off of that, you had the bullpen game against Philly. Got away with a win there. Is it just the odds just so against six to eight guys being on point and passing the baton the way that you need to to be able to prevail in a game like this, especially against Texas?

TOREY LOVULLO: Yeah, their lineup presents some challenges. They had some guys at the bottom that hurt us. Jankowski probably wouldn't have been playing this game if Garcia was healthy. He banged the baseball around today and got and some big knocks.

We've got to be spot on and not take anything for granted and be as ready as we possibly can whoever is coming into the game these types of situations.

It does present some unique challenges, but these guys have done it. We've done it several times this year. We had, specifically Joe Mantiply as an opener. We've used different guys at different times. And it's worked with some success, a certain degree of success. We just made some mistakes at the wrong time.

Q. You've talked about watching some of the classic World Series games when you were a kid. Is it hard -- you're trying to win however you can win -- to have a World Series game like this, 13 pitchers and both teams having trouble getting outs?

TOREY LOVULLO: It wasn't your traditional World Series game with a lot of World Series moments. But at the end of the day we're just trying to win a baseball game and find the best way to do so.

We know we have our three starting pitchers lined up for the next three days and this is just where we've been as an organization to have to do something like this.

But the game is a little different than it was in 1975, right, when I was watching the Big Red Machine against the Boston Red Sox. That was a totally different feel. This game has changed a little bit, and we just did all we could to win a baseball game today.

Q. So half an hour before the game, the Rangers basically put two of their best players off the roster. Did you expect them to be coming out flat, because they certainly didn't? They really came out kind of like with an energy and fervor.

TOREY LOVULLO: Not at all. Bruce Bochy is in charge of that baseball team. They're very focused. They're very determined. We did not take anything for granted. We expected their absolute best.

We knew probably a little bit before it came out, we probably got that word sometime during BP that it was shaping up that way. There's shared information. I think it's very professional. The Rangers did a great job handing of it off for us, which we're thankful for because we got to start preparing for the next reliever in Burke.

And we're going to try to project what their lineup is. They did a great job getting that information to us as soon as they knew. But we did not -- nothing was diminished. We knew they would come out swinging with whatever group they started.

Q. How do you think that's going to impact the rest of the series?

TOREY LOVULLO: I hope in a positive way for us. You lose a really good player in Garcia, right, and potentially Scherzer. But looks like they've got a couple good understudies that got after it. We just have to get after it. We will be.