AL DIVISION SERIES: ROYALS VS YANKEES

October 5, 2024

Matt Quatraro

Yankee Stadium

Kansas City Royals

Postgame 1 Press Conference

Yankees 6, Royals 5

Q. How much did the three passes hurt, eight walks total for you guys?

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, that's really uncharacteristic for us. It's something you don't want to try to fight back from against a team like that. So that was uncharacteristic and unfortunate because that's not really who we are as a staff.

Q. Can you take us through the decision to pull Wacha there after walking Torres?

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, that first inning was taxing. You've got to figure -- there's more going on there emotionally draining, just the atmosphere, all of that kind of stuff. I'm almost accounting for an extra inning there after that first inning.

We know how good Soto is especially when he gets a third look at somebody. Like I said, if he was cruising, that would be a different story, but with the -- whether that was a legitimate walk or not, it's tough. But right there, we trust Zerpa a lot with the lefties. We know how good Soto is, and we thought we'd be able to get after him with Zerpa.

Q. Did you get a pretty good look at the replay on the review at second, and do you feel like you guys had that one when you challenged it?

MATT QUATRARO: I got a really good look at it out there and afterwards, and I think we did have a really good argument that that should have been overturned.

Q. Do you have a sense on why they didn't see --

MATT QUATRARO: No, I haven't gotten any sort of explanation, but it certainly looked -- in my opinion, I thought we had a really good argument to get that overturned.

Q. As you were saying, it's uncharacteristic for you guys to walk eight guys. Anything that you saw in their approach, or was it just the stadium and the Yankees?

MATT QUATRARO: I mean, I don't think it was the stadium. I think we've been here, we've played here, we've been in big environments. It's not the stadium. We just didn't execute pitches. When we did, they fouled them off.

Q. Was it an aggressive send to send Salvy there in the second inning to score the first run of the game?

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, it was aggressive, yes.

Q. What did you think of Gerrit Cole tonight?

MATT QUATRARO: His stuff is good. I thought we did a really nice job of battling him. I thought our guys came out with a good approach, put good swings on him. If you tell me before the game that's how his line is going to be, I'm going to take my chances with that every day of the week.

Q. As it started going back and forth through the middle innings, this is one of those nights no lead is safe for either team?

MATT QUATRARO: Well, nobody really had a huge lead. It was one run. You never feel like that's safe, regardless of how the game gets to that point.

Like we said, uncharacteristic for us to issue the free passes, but that's an exciting ballgame. There's a lot going on. It's back and forth, two really good teams.

Q. What did you think of Hampson's at-bats tonight, and how impactful can he be the rest of the series?

A. Yeah, he's a big part of what we do. He and Izzy, we do that often, what we did tonight. He can do a lot of things, he can move the ball around the field, he can steal bases, he's extremely versatile defensively. So he's been a big part of what we've done all along and he'll continue to be.

Q. Were you surprised the infield was drawn in for that one, for Hampson's pinch-hit?

MATT QUATRARO: No, I wasn't surprised by that.

Q. Just curious after the back and forth, how do you think you guys will be able to respond in Game 2?

MATT QUATRARO: Oh, I'm not worried about that at all. We're here to play. We're confident. We know it's going to be a tough game, clearly, but I'm not worried about their morale or anything like that.

Q. Going back to Yuli Gurriel's 11-pitch at-bat, how important was that to set up what MJ Melendez did right after?

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, it looked like that took something out of Cole right there. That was a heck of a battle right there and MJ was ready to hit right after him. Yuli had great at-bats all night. A couple more feet that's a homer off Cole in the sixth and the two walks were tremendous at-bats.

Q. Zerpa obviously had a really big moment in Game 2 of the Wild Card series, but what did you see out of him tonight?

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, probably came out of his delivery a little bit and misses were bigger than normal. I did not go back and look at some of those pitches. They certainly looked like competitive pitches early, especially the first one to Soto. That can change the whole complexion of the at-bat. But I think overall just coming out of his delivery a little too much.