AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: GUARDIANS VS YANKEES

October 19, 2024

Stephen Vogt

Progressive Field

Cleveland Guardians

Pregame 5 Press Conference

Q. Take us through your lineup changes.

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, left-handed starter, so that's where we start Fry and Noel, and Bo Naylor has been catching Bibee almost every game. That's what went into it.

Q. What are you looking to see from Bibee tonight and how will you know he's really hitting his mark?

STEPHEN VOGT: When he's attacking the zone with his best stuff. I think they hit him around a little bit his first time out, so we'll make adjustments from that. Tanner has been our guy and he will be, and I expect him to go out and have a great game tonight.

Q. Have your pitching guys kind of dove into what's happened to Clase the last two times out? Is it just one thing or is his velo down? What have you seen?

STEPHEN VOGT: All I've seen is he's just missing over the middle a little bit right now. He's kind of in the mid thigh range. He's in the middle part of the zone.

When Clase is at his best, he's at the top and at the bottom. For me, it's getting back to hitting your spots and pitch, but Emmanuel will be right back out there in the ninth tonight because he's our guy.

Q. It might be a statistical anomaly, but Torres has reached base safely inning seven times in the postseason and Soto six times. Is there something about those at-bats early in the game that you're noticing that is standing out to try to work here against?

STEPHEN VOGT: I think that's just they're very two good players that come out of the gates ready to go. A lot of times for starting pitchers, maybe it takes them a hit or two to settle in and those are two guys you can't settle in against. For us, it's attack in the way we want to and make pitches and try and keep them off the base.

Q. Josh had some good results yesterday. Did you notice anything different with his approach or his swing that led to that?

STEPHEN VOGT: I thought the swing on the first base hit, you got a changeup up and got enough on it to get it into the outfield. And really the double, that's the first fastball he's seen over the middle of the plate. These guys have been pitching him really tough.

They've been throwing changeups down the way, getting him to chase and really no secret, but for Josh, that is what he does when he gets fastballs in the middle of the zone. That is why they are not throwing him any there. But for Josh, it's getting to be himself, looking in that damage zone, and staying diligent to it.

Q. Having recently been a catcher yourself, even though the changes name sometimes on the Yankees, are these always the sort of at-bats you know they're going to take? No matter who's there, they draw a lot of walks.

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, they don't chase. They're on the fastball and they don't chase. It's a good combination for offense. It seems like no matter who they bring in, no matter who they have, and they identify these guys before they bring them in.

They want guys who control the zone and do damage. They do a great job of that. That's why the Yankees are always a good team.

For us, we've got to make our pitches in the zone. We've talked about it all series long. We have to execute our pitches in the zone and get weak contact.

Q. What's the availability of this evening besides Clase?

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, we're four full go. Everybody is available. How many pitches, that's going to be the question. For us, we don't want to overextend any of our guys. This will be three in a row. We know what we're up against. We know what we're facing. That being said, we have enough guys and enough bullets to get us through this game and win it.

Q. Are any of your starters available?

STEPHEN VOGT: No, they're not. Ben Lively and Joey Cantillo are already in the bullpen, but Matthew Boyd and Gavin Williams are not.

Q. I know you talked about countless times about who you guys are and kind of the identity of the team. When did you first convinced that that never-say-die personality was real?

STEPHEN VOGT: We saw it early in the year. We had a couple of late-game comebacks. It just seemed like as the first few weeks transpired, every time we would give up a run, we'd punch right back.

If I remember right, it might have been our second home game, the White Sox scored five runs in the first inning off our starter, and we had the game tied by the third. That's who we became.

The guys in that clubhouse owned that, and that's been their mantra. That's been the way they've carried themselves is we never back down, we never quit. Again last night, Stanton hits that homer off Cade Smith, first runs he's given up all postseason, and our guys weren't defeated. We came right back and punched them, and that's who this group is.

Q. Is that like a player-led quality, or do you think that you and your coaching staff have really combined with the clubhouse to create that?

STEPHEN VOGT: The players drive the bus. The players drive everything. It's our job as a staff to identify what they're wanting to do and to own that and help push it in the right direction.

Everything we do is for our players and about our players. And whatever they decide they want to be, we're going to jump all in and we're going to go.

Q. What do you think you guys can take from seeing Rodón in Game 1 and applying that here tonight?

STEPHEN VOGT: I think there's the familiarity. We've seen him once, and for us, it's making adjustments from what we saw, and we know he can throw any pitch at any time. That's the hard part about hitting is you don't know what's coming.

But our guys have seen him. We've hit lefties very well this year, so I feel like we're ready to go, and we've got a good game plan.

Q. Maybe you've already answered this, but do you guys have a starter for Game 6?

STEPHEN VOGT: We don't. Not yet.

Q. Playing that by ear?

STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah.

Q. Torres has reached base in the first inning in all four games. How important is it to get that clean inning to start, maybe allowing Bibee to get deeper into this game?

STEPHEN VOGT: I mean, it's great to get zeros. We just talked about their first-inning stuff a couple minutes ago. That's our job. We've got to make pitches and keep them off base.