AL DIVISION SERIES: ROYALS VS YANKEES

October 10, 2024

Matt Quatraro

Kauffman Stadium

Kansas City Royals

Pregame 4 Press Conference

Q. Game planning against Gerrit Cole. You guys made some good contact early. How do you go into preparing for adjustments and making sure your guys are ready to have that same success?

MATT QUATRARO: Well, I mean, we know he's tough. If he executes, he makes that even tougher. But we have to be aggressive. He throws a lot of strikes. You just have to be disciplined that you don't expand the zone with him because that's when he can really get quick outs.

But one of our strengths is contact, so hopefully putting solid contact into play and then making him make some adjustments to us.

Q. The walks have stood out against the Yankees lineup. Is that representative of their approach or something you guys are doing that you'd like to see change? How do you assess that?

MATT QUATRARO: I think it's a combination. We know throughout the course of the year they're very patient, they do take their walks. I think we have also missed locations. We've missed bigger than we normally do.

Game 2 was more representative of how we've thrown the ball throughout the course of the year than games 1 and 3, so we need to make that adjustment.

Q. You guys have done a nice job of putting yesterday away and today is the mantra. How do you practically do that for yourself?

MATT QUATRARO: Just kind of how I've lived my life. It's not like something I just started to try to do. Putting the emphasis on what's right in front of me, I guess, is what's most important. You have to understand there's compartmentalizing. There's a lot of things that go on in life that you have to deal with. But whatever is the immediate thing is the one that you give your attention to and try to prioritize, I guess.

I think that's what's important in this game.

Q. Lynch did a really good job for you late in the year. What is the situation that you're looking for to get him in? We haven't seen him yet.

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, he did a great job for us. It's not that we have not thought about putting him in or don't trust that he could get the job done. A lot of these situations in these first three games have unfolded very similarly, and with the off-days, we've gone with basically the same guys.

Now, with back-to-back games today, it could be different. We feel good about him against righties and lefties. There's certain spots in the order where we would feel really good about that.

Q. When it comes to obviously it's win or go home now, is there any kind of motivation or anything you try to give these players or do you try to handle it like it's any other game?

MATT QUATRARO: Yeah, they're aware of that. There's no message that has to be sent. They understand where we are. As soon as we got in the clubhouse last night, I heard Salvy say something to the guys, not in a meeting or anything like that but just the message, his bellowing voice can be heard to the guys.

To me the most important thing is when I came in today, it felt the same as it did at any other point. The music was on, the guys were working out, they're doing their normal routine. They shouldn't try to play any differently. They understand the urgency of the game, but there's nothing -- this isn't a game where just trying harder necessarily means you're going to get better results.

Q. What did Salvy say?

MATT QUATRARO: Just we'll get them tomorrow, something simple like that. I don't know exactly what he said. I was in my office, but you can hear his voice throughout the clubhouse. It wasn't long, it was just something like, hey, keep your heads up or something simple like that.

Q. This may be kind of odd, but as you go through this month and especially during games, are you as calm on the inside as you appear to be?

MATT QUATRARO: I would say most of the time. I mean, there's certainly scenarios when we were in Baltimore and it was bases loaded and one out and whether it was a tie game or one-run game at that point, I certainly was feeling it a little bit.

But I do the best I can to -- just what I was just saying about the players, keep the routines the same, the conversations between the staff the same so that our decision making is the same process as it is throughout the course of the year. Try not to get too involved in the crowd or the game situations and just try to stay focused on what I normally focus on.

Q. Is that a skill you can get better at or refine?

MATT QUATRARO: I hope so, yeah. This is my first time doing it in this atmosphere, and I hope that as the years go on, you learn to manage things better and understand things better.

Now, I will say a lot of the people that I've been around that have done this for a long time, you still get caught up in those situations. You still have decisions to make or things to think through. It doesn't necessarily get easier. You just have more reps at doing it.

Q. With this being an elimination game, do you see it adding wrinkles to managerial decisions or anything that might go on during the game tonight?

MATT QUATRARO: Possibly, yeah. All hands are on deck. You can't let things play out too far, try to force some things offensively if we have the opportunities. But the game is going to be the game. It's got to unfold. You can't make something happen until the players have that in their hands. That's kind of the beauty of this, as well, is there's a lot of things in this game that you have to just let go of and you don't have control over a lot of it.

But the things that you do, you try to put yourself and your players in the best position to succeed.

Q. You've known Michael Wacha for a good bit. Knowing his temperament and being able to be in this moment, are there things that you look for maybe nonverbally to know that he's locked in and he will elevate his game?

MATT QUATRARO: Well, I certainly feel really good about the fact that he's taking the ball. He's been through this before numerous times. He's got 10, 11-plus years in the Big Leagues. The moment is not going to be too big for him. He trusts his stuff. We trust him. I really feel good about it.

We'll look for all the normal things we do, whether they're high-stress innings or whether he's battling himself, those kinds of things. We'll have our eyes on it for sure.

Q. You said it's all hands on deck. Is that everybody available to go in the bullpen tonight?

MATT QUATRARO: Yes, absolutely.

Q. How did Will look in his session out there?

MATT QUATRARO: Good. I only saw Stratton and him, but they both were throwing the ball free and easy.