AL WILD CARD SERIES: ROYALS VS ORIOLES

October 2, 2024

Brandon Hyde

Camden Yards

Baltimore Orioles

Postgame Press Conference

Royals 2, Orioles 1

Q. Brandon, what are the emotions of your season ending in such sudden and swift fashion?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, we're very disappointed. Pretty frustrating after those couple games.

But give all the credit to Kansas City; Q and his staff, their players, it's a first-class organization over there. They played really, really well. They pitched to us incredibly well. Scored one run in two games.

Give them a lot of credit. They played better than us these two games.

Q. They have an extremely talented pitching staff but you also have an extremely talented lineup. I know they struggled most of the second half. But what have you been seeing from them the last two games after how well they have looked?

BRANDON HYDE: Well, I thought we battled. We had a couple opportunities there. Massey makes a great play on O'Hearn there that could possibly change the game in our favor, and we got the bases loaded and we didn't score.

I thought they did a great job of pitching out of trouble. I thought we gave everything we had. I thought we pitched really, really well. We pitched out of traffic almost the entire game it felt like to keep the score where it was. Just a disappointing finish.

Q. A lot of people talk about slumps and things of that nature during the course of the year. How different is two games now as opposed to, say, two or three in the middle of the season when that happens, but there's so much more magnification with this?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, I thought we faced a great left-handed starter yesterday, and I thought Lugo was good today, and their bullpen guys. The way our lineup is, we're going to see the two or three best left-handers that you have on a nightly basis if they have the lead, and that's what happened to us.

They all have really good stuff and their bullpen in Erceg, that's elite at the end of the game. We just had a tough time scoring runs.

Q. The problems Adley had in the second half, can you figure it out at all? That's all I get asked by people.

BRANDON HYDE: I've answered this question a million times. I think that it's a young player that just was dealing with some adversity. Giving everything he had on a daily basis, trying to get out of it, maybe trying too hard at times.

I thought he swung the bat well today, and I was hopeful we could keep going because I wanted him to build off his swings today. Hit the ball right on the nose to the shortstop right-handed; hit the ball on the nose left-handed. I think he's going to come back next year and I think he's going to be a different player.

Q. How does or will this hurt compared to the way that it felt last year?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, this hurt just because we had opportunities to win both games. Last year Game 1 opportunity, didn't win, but then the next two kind of got out of hand.

This year you felt like these were two winnable games.

Q. With Eflin was it just every man, every hand on deck getting out there with 75 pitches or was there something going on with him?

BRANDON HYDE: No, it's a do-or-die game, and I thought our bullpen was fantastic. F gave up one, we gave up one in five innings out of the bullpen. Normally you give yourself a good chance there.

Q. Cano against Witt there, he gets the ground ball with the sinker he was looking for. Did you feel like Jordan might have had a play at second base there with the flip or was it just hit too hard?

BRANDON HYDE: I thought it was, one, Jordan great play getting him the ball. For being so young, what a great player. Very, very difficult. So I haven't looked at the replay to see if he thought he had time or not.

Obviously when you're on your stomach it's going to be tough to throw without a first base. He did the best he possibly could. I haven't looked at the transfer or where he was at that point, but I thought Westy did a great job of getting to the ball.

Q. I know you have to let this marinate for a second, but what's the message to these guys after this?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, we're very disappointed. It's definitely not ending -- I think especially when you lose like this, there's frustration, there's anger, there's disappointment because you felt like there was opportunities there in those couple games to change the score, and it didn't happen.

I'm proud of our team. I thought we had a really good first half. Things were going well. Second half we had a lot of bumps in the road.

I thought we battled as well as we possibly could. We persevered. We got into the postseason. We hosted a Wild Card. We just had a tough time offensively these two games against a really good pitching staff and a scrappy team.