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NL DIVISION SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS v BREWERS

October 5, 2011

John Axford

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Four

Q. Your season has been a model of consistency. I wondered if there was a way you could sort of distill for us how you get to that point?
JOHN AXFORD: I've really just tried it from day one, despite, I guess, the rough patch at the start of the year, I really didn't change anything. I started a routine early in the year and I kind of modified it a little bit. But that's really it.
I just try and stick to my routine day-in and day-out and try to do things the same way. Try to focus the same way I do every single day. And when I'm on the mound, focus the same way. It doesn't matter what the situation is, just try to take it one pitch at a time and do the same thing.

Q. What's the best way to describe those relief workouts? It looks like something different is going on every day. Sometimes it doesn't remotely resemble baseball. What's the best way to describe what you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish with that?
JOHN AXFORD: We did something different the first time today, as well. We threw baseballs.

Q. In football patterns?
JOHN AXFORD: We generally have footballs or aerobies, Frisbees or whatever. There's seven guys in the bullpen, so each guy gets a day of the week. Some days are harder than others. I get moustache Monday. That's my day.
But today, yeah, we did something different. Today's game, what's 162 plus 4, 166? Yeah. Today is Game 166 and we did something we haven't done all year. Guys think of something new, something different all the time. It's part of our brotherhood. We have that down there.
It's exciting. It's different. I think it's different than anything I've ever experienced with a group of guys. We're all so close down there. It's a lot of fun to do something different.

Q. Whose call was it today?
JOHN AXFORD: Today was Marco. Marco has Wednesdays.

Q. He decided to throw basketballs to centerfield?
JOHN AXFORD: Yeah.

Q. I don't know if you've been asked this already. But Tom and I get a kick out of all the hand shakes and high 5's when you guys come out. Can you describe the genesis of that, who came up with that and what's that all about?
JOHN AXFORD: A lot of the hand shakes, believe it or not, started in Triple-A I want to say last year. There's Marco, Tim Dillard, myself, Kameron Loe, we all started these hand shakes when we were in Nashville. Some guys already had some when they were up here. I remember last year Carlos Villanueva had hand shakes with a lot of different guys. And Mitch Stetter, as well.
So it's just something that kind of carried over to the fun we were having playing baseball, not being in the big leagues. Now it's just kind of expanded into something a little more significant, because you're on a bigger stage. People get to see it a little bit more. And they're a little bit more elaborate, I guess, as well. Whereas before there were a bunch of things.
Now there's a whole bunch of different props being involved. Things that you can't see, like Samurai swords or wooden boards. It's just something to do to break the ice and keep things loose in the pen.

Q. Talk about the chemistry you guys have developed over the course of the season. Do individual players feed off of one another, high energy level? Talk about how you guys have reached the level that you have?
JOHN AXFORD: You know, we definitely feed off of each other. It was a close group from day one, even in Spring Training. Everyone's fighting and clawing for a spot on this team. But everyone is also pulling and rooting for each other, and I think that's been great this entire year.
Even when we added Frankie. He fit right in the mold right away. It took him a couple of days to figure out who we were and what we're about, but once he saw we were a good group of guys, we joke around, and have fun, but get serious when it's time to get serious. I think he enjoyed that we could joke around and have fun with each other and enjoy the game of baseball and enjoy it out of the ballpark, as well.

Q. Have you ever paused to contemplate the transformation you've had from private citizen to star closer?
JOHN AXFORD: I was just asked about that four minutes ago.

Q. Sorry.
JOHN AXFORD: No, another interview.
I haven't, really. I guess maybe after this season is all done I'll think about it a little bit more. I know I'm getting a lot more attention in my homeland of Canada, so it's a little bit different. I can go back home most of the time and go to the grocery store most of the time. Obviously I don't have a mustache generally or this long of hair, so I look a little bit different.
But things are changing a little bit, but that's good. You want to be here. You don't want to play Major League Baseball just to play. You want to play to win. And you want to play to win the World Series. When you get to that point obviously things are going to put out there on the national stage a little bit more. And a second national stage in Canada for me.
I've definitely enjoyed it, but I haven't really been able to reflect quite yet. Maybe in the off season when I have more downtime I'll focus on it, but right now I'll focus on what's going on.

Q. I saw your teammates had kind of a reunion with Trevor Hoffman yesterday. I'm curious how valuable your time was, and I imagine it wasn't just about pitching.
JOHN AXFORD: No, it wasn't just about pitching. It's great to see him every time. I saw him in Spring Training down in San Diego and now here. He was great, all through last year, even before that, spring trainings, he's always there to help you out, whether you think you need it or not. Because he has all this knowledge. He knows the game. He knows life outside the game.
He's not even just there to be a tutor or a mentor baseball-wise. He's lived a great life. He has a great family and great boys. So you're always willing to listen to a man who's played 18 years in the big leagues and done it the right way and has a great family, as well. It's always great to hear from him and great to see from him.
I get a text from him about every other save I have. We can have a good back and forth, which is something you miss in person. Every time you see him you get to see the energy he has for this ballclub, too. So it's really, really cool.

Q. Those workouts started with Hoffman, right?
JOHN AXFORD: Uh-huh.

Q. Was there a discussion with you guys, do we continue this or do we start over, he's gone and start over and do our own thing?
JOHN AXFORD: Yeah, it was everyone was doing it early, when I was called up in May. Pitchers, I guess, were generally not out there as much. When we play other teams we're always in BP. So we get things done pretty early, get to the ballpark early. And that's something that Trevor started to get things out of the way, get things done. You're not dodging the basketballs. You get all the work in that you need to get done.
Toward last year, August and September, we were really pushing it hard to maintain your strength throughout the season, so we were doing a lot more around 3:00. It's something we talked about I remember as a bullpen, we talked about it in Spring Training, is it something we want to keep doing and everybody said yes, that it's something we want to do.
Instead of one guy picking it, we're all going to take a day. And that's why everyone has a particular day now. We do abs on certain days, all the time, too, we do more intense runnings on certain days, we have a day off, the next day it picks up, we do more.
It all stems from something that Hoffy taught us and brought to this ballclub and it's nice it stuck around.

Q. What was your favorite workout or a couple of your favorites?
JOHN AXFORD: From this year or last?

Q. Either, just for people who haven't seen, what are some of the best, most unique one?
JOHN AXFORD: Last year we did a lot of ballpark runs. Like Miller Park. If we get to a new city, check out the city, we'd go for runs around the town, see what sights there were to see. If it was too hot maybe stay inside and do something different.
One day when we felt like we were getting better in shape, last year in September, we were going to do the regular parking lot run, for people that haven't been to Miller Park, south dock to south dock is what we were going to do, go around the front part of the stadium. And people said I think I can do it in 12 minutes, we went another 7 minutes around the far parking lot, to see if we could push it that way. We try to push it a little bit more. If you felt like you were getting better, you just push on a little bit farther.
This year we've had a cornucopia of things, it's been everything. To parking lot runs to just some sprints, to baseball tosses, football tosses, everything. It's been a lot of fun because you never know what someone is going to pick.

Q. Didn't you go to the very top of Dodger Stadium?
JOHN AXFORD: That was kind of scary, though. There were a few guys that were holding on to the rail. That 400 incline was quite the incline. We were running the stairs. Most guys didn't run down, they just held on as tight as they could.

Q. You hear the term used, a closer's mentality. Does that have any meaning for you, and if so, what do you think you have that represents a closer's mentality?
JOHN AXFORD: I think probably the best way to say that is just say short memory. I think that's been the biggest thing I've picked up recently. It was really tough, I think, in college. You have a week to wait in between starts. When I was in the minor leagues and I was a starter, I was also relieving at times in between, and I couldn't let anything go.
Once in '09 when I was just in the bullpen, I got a short-term memory pretty much immediately. I was thrown into the fire right away. You're throwing in bases loaded, nobody out, and you get the loss, I was back in there the next day, it didn't matter. I screwed up and I had to do it again.
I think I learned very quickly that way that that was the best possible scenario. Just forget what happened the previous day, what happened the previous batter and the previous pitch. You can take one pitch at a time and I guess that's been my closer's mentality.

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