Q. Hi, Spencer. You guys traveled. You flew yesterday. You've probably been home in your house for less than ten hours, if that. How does your body feel in terms of the jet lag? Was that enough to get you guys re-acclimated?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Yeah. It's enough. I think it's going to be difficult for both sides, but that's kind of part of it. But my body feels fine.
Maybe a little bit tired this morning, but a couple coffees and 45,000 screaming, and you're back, you know?
Q. Hey, Tork. With all the time you guys have been away from your -- I know other players talked about being low on laundry and stuff. How much did you have to just take care of regular stuff when you came back?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Yeah. A lot of loads of laundry last night immediately. Normally I like to wait to unpack the suitcase, but last night I was like, throw the whole thing in the washing machine.
But the clubbies on the road are unbelievable of helping us out, making sure we have clean underwear and socks and stuff.
But yeah. It was kind of hectic last night, but it's all good now.
Q. Spencer, question about runners in scoring position. You had a huge knock in Game 2 with a runner on second, runner on first as well, and I think it was in the eighth inning. What is the approach like when you do have runners in scoring position, and what has helped you find success in those big moments?
SPENCER TORKELSON: In the eighth inning the other night, that was just to try to make the situation better for the guy behind me better than what it was for me. So just try to get to the next guy. We were down two runs right there, so you can't try to play hero ball. That's when we get tense and swing a little too hard and chase out of the zone a little bit.
So right there it's just to keep the line moving and not try to do too much. There's a lot of hits to the right side of second base, and that gave me a lot of ease in my approach, especially with how good Brash's slider and sinker is.
Q. You guys did a lot of good things, especially the second game, taking pitches, forcing Castillo out of the game, a lot of walks. The big hit hasn't come yet. How close do you think you guys are to kind of breaking out a little bit and getting some of those run-producing knocks that you were doing in the regular season and previously?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Very close. I've said it before. It's one click away. It's one pitch away, two pitches away, which is, like -- that's 30 seconds. So, like, that's how close we are.
But I think our time is coming, especially, you know, in big situations. I think whatever that click is, we don't know, but we're going to find it, and we're very close.
Q. It feels like this postseason you've had a lot of tricky hops that you've been able to handle. You've also dug a fair amount of throws out of the dirt. How much does working on both of them kind of intertwine? Does working on one kind of help you with the other in terms of reading balls or just knowing how to approach them aggressively?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Maybe. Preparation is huge for me. I think Joey Cora is an unbelievable coach to have in preparation. He's not afraid to have early work every single day, and most of us are happy to do that.
I just like to be prepared, and the work we do every single day, we work on scoops every day. We take ground balls every day. We take those as serious as possible to make it as end-game-like as possible, and I think that's been the key for me.
Q. Spencer, it's probably hard to zoom out when you're in the middle of the playoffs, but for you to be here along with Riley and Ding and you guys who all came up together and wanted to bring a winning culture to this organization, what does it mean to actually be doing that and be in the postseason?
SPENCER TORKELSON: It's pretty special, and you're right. It's hard to kind of see that in the middle of a playoff run right now. But it's been unbelievable. And to share this with all the guys that we've come up with and grinded some tough times, some great times together with, it's what makes it all worth it.
And just to kind of -- we said we wanted to bring a winning culture, and to be a part of that is -- it's awesome.
Q. Spencer, there are some people who will say come postseason time that you want to be playing well going into the postseason and have momentum, and there are other people who will say it doesn't matter, it's a fresh season, it's 0-0 when you get in, right? From a guy who's lived through it now and had to go through the Wild Card to get through the DS, can you explain what your feeling was, your mindset, after the season? The regular season maybe didn't end the way you guys wanted, but you got in and now you've advanced?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Whoever says whatever, it kind of depends on what position they're in. So we weren't playing the best coming in, so we're going to say, you know, it's a clean slate. And if we were smoking hot, we'd say you want to be smoking hot heading into the postseason.
I don't think it truly matters. The only thing that matters is everyone has the same record and everyone has an equal seat at the table. And that's the mindset we took into it, and I think it's the right mindset to have, you know? Everyone has an equal opportunity to win.
Q. Did any good come out of September and the struggles you went through there at the end?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Definitely. I think there's always something to learn from, but there's also a lot to take in the previous, you know, five months of us playing. There was a lot of good, a lot more good than bad.
So we can learn from some of the bad, but we don't want to put a microscope on it. We try to put a microscope on all the great things we accomplished.
And I think that's what we've done a great job of handling, is knowing our identity isn't the way we played a lot of the games in September. It's the way we played for 90 percent of the season. And taking that confidence with us into October has been key.
Q. Back to the at-bat with Brash the other night, first of all, can you explain how, if at all, his slider looks different than a typical right-handed slider? And second of all, were you surprised that it wasn't a slider that you got for the final pitch?
SPENCER TORKELSON: Yeah. It's probably one of the better sliders I've ever seen. I mean, he rips that thing.
And I think -- I don't know what pitch of the at-bat I got my hit on, but every pitch before that was a slider, so I was a little kind of slowed down, you'd say. I'm never -- 99 percent of the time I'm not getting off of the fastball, and I wasn't trying to be off the fastball, but I think just my timing was a little late to where I caught it a little deep.
But it definitely helped out in that scenario. But I wasn't expecting the slider, but it gave me five, four good looks at it to where I had pretty good confidence that I could see everything.
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