AL WILD CARD SERIES: TIGERS VS ASTROS

October 1, 2024

Dana Brown

Minute Maid Park

Houston Astros

Pregame Press Conference

DANA BROWN: Good morning, everybody. I'm sure you guys probably got the updated rosters, and so I'll take any questions that you guys may have.

Q. Hey, Dana. With Verlander, obviously, it kind of became clear the last two weeks that it was trending in this direction, but what was that conversation like with him, and how did he take the news that he's not on the roster?

DANA BROWN: It's more of a Joe question because Joe talked to him about it. Joe and Josh Miller. I think that, ultimately, Verlander is a professional. He's been in the game a long time. And, you know, ultimately, he wants to do what's best for the club. And so I thought that from talking to Joe, the conversation went very well.

Q. How about with Alvarez? What were the conversations like about him being on the roster? Do you expect him to have any limitations at all in what he can do?

DANA BROWN: Ultimately, we wanted Yordan badly. We felt like if he could give us all that he has, he may not be totally 100 percent, but I think he felt good enough to go. And so we're going to push forward and we put him on the roster, and ultimately we're looking for good things from him. We feel like he's healthy enough, he's gone through some pretty good baseball activity in terms of running and swinging the bat. So we felt he was good to go.

Q. Dana, Jose Altuve in recent weeks has talked about wanting Alex to stay here long term, optimistic that a deal will be reached. What are your thoughts on his comments about that, and do you have similar optimism?

DANA BROWN: Ultimately, we want Bregman to stay. He's done a lot of good things in this organization. I've had some conversations with Boris, and we've talked about, you know, meeting up at the end of the season and having some good conversations.

So we'd love for him to stay. We hope we can get it done. As far as he's a good teammate with Altuve, so I can understand why Altuve would like to have him here too. We also feel the same way.

Q. Dana, is McCullers throwing?

DANA BROWN: Sorry?

Q. Is McCullers throwing?

DANA BROWN: No.

Q. Joe had said he was going to start throwing again, I think it was the weekend before last. What happened there?

DANA BROWN: Say it again.

Q. Joe had said McCullers was going to start throwing weekend before last. Why didn't he start?

DANA BROWN: Well, I mean, I don't think there's any need to rush McCullers at this stage of the game. I mean, he's not going to pitch for us this year, of course. And so the whole goal is to get him back for 2025 at some point. And so I don't think it's any need to rush him. And I think once he feels good enough to go, we could start letting him throw, and it's going to be based on how he feels.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks for coming in, Dana.

DANA BROWN: Thank you, guys.