Q. Gavin, when did you find out you were going to start this game?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Probably an hour ago now. Carl came up to me and just told me that I was going to start.
Q. You had to have a pretty good idea, though, right?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I had an idea I was going to start one of these games. I just didn't know which one exactly.
Q. What does it mean to you to?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I mean, kind of star struck a little bit, just being able to start a playoff game. It's phenomenal. Them trusting me to go Game 1, it's unbelievable.
Q. Last year at this point you were out of the bullpen. This is a completely different role. What does it take in terms of the work you've put in to get to this point this season and what you've transformed yourself into?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, I was just lucky last year to be on the playoff roster. There's numerous guys that could have been on there besides me. But I went into the off-season with one thing on my mind and that was to get better and help out the team in any way I could possibly do this year.
Q. What challenges or advantages are there to facing the same team this many times in this short of a span?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I know what they've got, they know what I've got. There's really no advantages or disadvantages. We play them so many times throughout the whole year. We're going to take it one inning at a time, one pitch at a time.
Q. What does it say about the faith Stephen Vogt and the organization has in you to have you start this first game?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, I appreciate him believing in me. I know it's been a long year. I started off a little rough, but just adding a couple pitches and them never giving up on me, it means a lot.
Q. How would you describe how the sinker and cutter changed everything for you?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I mean, it opened up the whole zone for me. It opened up the top half, the bottom half, east and west. Just having a couple more pitches in the back of the hitter's mind, it opens up a lot of things for me to be able to go deeper into games and help myself out?
Q. What do you think you can take from the role you had in the Playoffs last year, now obviously a much different role, but what can you lean on or pull from from that?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Just having a little bit more experience in the Playoffs from last year. I know I only went a couple innings last year, but just taking that into this year is going to help out a lot for me.
Q. You mentioned feeling a little star struck just with that opportunity. What's the balance of trying to stay even keel for this moment but also kind of riding that high, that excitement of having this moment in front of you?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Just take it day by day. Can't really look into the future too much. That's when things can go wrong. I don't want to get too ahead of myself.
Q. You said that you didn't know until an hour ago, but have you been preparing as if you were going to start this first game?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think everybody has been preparing for it. There's six starters that could go Game 1. It just was whoever they wanted to throw the Game 1.
Q. You talked all year about the delivery changes you've made on the fly. How would you describe the process, what it looks to do that, and what were some things that you tweaked?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I think the main thing that I feel like everybody can see is the positioning of my glove. It's given my arm a little bit more length at times, so helping me go glove side to arm side really. It helps out with everything. It helps out with pitch shape, location, anything. It helps out a lot.
Q. How long did it take for you to get to a point where it was comfortable?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I'd probably say a good month, month and a half. Definitely not overnight. It was frustrating at times just wanting to give up on it, but I had the pitching department behind me and having me do different things, different delivery stuff every day, it helped out a lot.
Q. The past month especially, did it feel like playoff mode?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: 100 percent, having all the fans out there. I was turning my pitch count up to 20 and I could barely hear it. Luckily when I couldn't hear it they were just mashing the button as many times as possible for me to hear the pitch. The past month it's been unbelievable having the fans here.
Q. The Playoffs have to be handled slightly differently. You don't necessarily get the same leash to work through things if you're not super sharp from the outset. Have you had games this year where you didn't have it early on and you felt like you got back your sharp stuff quickly? Do you feel like you can repeat that process should you run into something like that?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, I've had plenty of outings like that this year. Probably second, third inning some of the pitching coaches have come down, told me what I need to do. I'm thinking it happened in Detroit the other week, the fourth inning. We finally figured out something that was going wrong, and that fifth inning is when everything clicked.
I know I didn't go as deep as I wanted to, but just being able to fix one thing mid-game, it helps out a lot.
Q. Was there a similar experience like that in New York in your no-hitter?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I don't think so. I was just going on the fly with that. I don't think I talked to any of the pitching coaches the whole time during that game.
Q. How much has the six-man rotation been a benefit this season?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think everybody is a little bit more fresh than if we were on a five-man. It helps out with recovery. Being able to get an extra day of rest helps out a lot, just being able to throw a pen on day three rather than day two definitely helps out a lot too.
Q. What has Carl Willis meant to you?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Carl is awesome. I love Carl. It goes back from the last off-season with him. He'd come in and watch me throw. We tweaked a little bit of things, tried to work on the changeup. It didn't really work out, so got rid of that. But figured out some other things in the delivery, too.
Q. The curveball and the sweeper were both really good last week against Detroit. What's been behind the development of those two pitches and how did that compare to the two breaking balls you were using early in your career?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: Just redefining them. I know with the sweeper, slider, whatever you want to call it, just having more horizontal movement on it, going away to right-handed hitters it's helped a lot. They can't really sit on the heater, so they've got two of three pitches to have to worry about.
Q. Going back to yesterday and the celebration, to see José Ramirez grab that flag and plant it in the middle of the field, what did that mean to you and the guys in the dugout?
GAVIN WILLIAMS: I mean, Josey is one of the best players in the game. Just seeing him do that and seeing the crowd cheer for him and just the things he's done all year, it's phenomenal. I'm lucky I get to play with him as long as I do.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports