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NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS v BRAVESOctober 3, 2013Mike MinorATLANTA, GEORGIA: Game One Q. This is your first postseason start. Is there a start you've made in the last year or two that you feel whether it was like a close 1‑0 game or the crowd that you feel might have prepared you for what you're going to experience? MIKE MINOR: I would say the closest one would be the Cardinals start here at home at the end of the season when I faced Wainwright. He's going to be an ace starter for them and No.1. There was a big crowd here that night, and it was a big game for us to win. We knew we were going to play those guys in the postseason sometime. Q. I'm sure you know this, but did you grow up much of a Braves fan? And what kind of postseason stuff did you see on TV or pay attention to? MIKE MINOR: I was a Braves fan, but I was more of a players' fan. I'd watch ESPN and watched all the big hitters. I was a hitter growing up, and I'd watch the Sammy Sosas, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, those guys, because I like to hit home runs. But then with the Braves, I watched Glavine, Smoltz, Chipper. I'd watch those guys and the way they dominated and the way that they didn't have‑‑ it was kind of the same things as our pitching staff right now with Glavine and Maddux. They threw in the low 90s, high 80s and they got guys out, and they threw a lot of sinkers and cutters, curveballs, changeups. They didn't really have dominant overpowering stuff, but they were the best in the game. Q. Do you have a sense yet of how many family and friends are going to be here at the start tomorrow and what this is going to mean for them, as well? MIKE MINOR: There won't be too many people because we have to pay for the tickets and everything. I don't have that much money. It will be close relatives, parents. There might be a couple friends that make it down, but I think my dad is going to be just as nervous as everyone else, seeing his son out there pitching. Q. I know you want to keep this as normal as possible, but there's got to be a part of you that's aware that a lot of people, for as good as you've been being back to last year, might be actually seeing you for the first time, certainly seeing you in this type of environment. Are you aware that when guys say are you ready for your close‑up, that's what postseason baseball is? MIKE MINOR: Yeah, I don't really‑‑ this is a different game. It's a postseason game, and everybody is going to be watching. But to me, I try to take that out of it. I try to say it's the same game, and that's what I've tried to do ever since last season, like you said. I try to go out there and give my team a chance to win every time and do my best. And I think the biggest thing tomorrow is going to be nerves, trying to settle myself down and have a good first inning, throw strikes, and get my breaking stuff working early on. Q. Can you talk about the challenge of facing Greinke tomorrow? MIKE MINOR: He's a tough pitcher. He's proven that. He's been in the league for a while, and he's dominated for a while. But I think anything can happen. We have big hitters. It leaves a mistake up there, we have a chance to hit it out of the ballpark and put some runs on the board. I think that's every game for us. We have to wait out guys sometimes. They make good pitches early on. And if they ever get tired and make a bad pitch, then we usually jump on them. Tomorrow hopefully I can hold them off for a while and let our guys do their work. Q. We all know how close you are with David Price. When you watch him do what he did the other night, does that either feed your excitement, confidence or maybe both? MIKE MINOR: Yeah, it definitely was exciting. Watching the game, they felt he was maybe going to pull him out in the seventh and then he ends up going two more and going a complete game. Didn't really strike out a whole lot of guys, getting some ground balls, pop‑ups, didn't really have his best stuff early on, but he settled in and they had the confidence to bring him back out there and keep him out there. I was just excited for him, and from us being teammates back at Vanderbilt, it was just exciting. Q. Has there been an exchange between the two of you over the last two days? MIKE MINOR: No, no. We don't text that much. But we will every now and then. It's kind of‑‑ I feel like it's‑‑ I kind of want to leave it alone because we might play them, so I don't really want to thumb him up too much. Q. You alluded to wanting to get off to a good start. Is that something you feel like has not been going your way this past month or so? MIKE MINOR: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Everybody has noticed it. I've noticed it. Everybody has talked about it. I think teams have been really aggressive towards me. I throw a lot of strikes, so they don't want to get deep in the count. And a lot of teams are either swinging on the first pitch of the game, showing me they're going to swing early, and most of the time I like to pound the strike zone early on and get in a good rhythm. And I feel like lately a couple balls have been falling in and then I'll get two outs and nobody will have scored yet and there will be a big base hit for them and they'll score a couple runs and I'll shut them out the rest of the game, the rest of the time I'm pitching. I think I just need to make better pitches early on, go more towards the corners but yet not throw balls, don't walk anybody. That's something else that's been coming up is I have a base open and I know that, and I want to make competitive pitches to guys, and I might nibble on the corners and walk that guy. And then the next guy gets a big base hit for them. So I feel like I need to attack hitters earlier on and just really go after them. Q. A couple minutes ago Fredi was asked about having a pitcher that's an ace. Where do you feel in your own mind that you are towards that evolution of that ace status? MIKE MINOR: I really don't think about it. I know myself, I don't really have dominant stuff. I don't throw 95. I throw low 90s. This year I top out 93, when I'm really raring back. But I don't really care. I don't really care what people call me, if they call me an ace or they call me No.5. If I go out there and win ballgames then nobody cares. The team wants you to pitch so you can win ballgames. It just shows ‑‑ Julio Teheran came in as our No.5 this year, and he's one of our best starters. He has dominant stuff. He could be an ace. There's guys on our team that have done it all year, and we just don't get recognition because we don't have hard sliders or hard curveballs, but we just try to get guys out. I don't really care what people label us as. We're going out there to try to win ballgames. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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