Q. I know pro athletes and coaches, managers, they're usually intentional about not letting outside noise into the locker rooms, clubhouses, whatnot as they try to do their job. But from a human aspect, I want to know do you and your team just feel the buzz between this match-up? It's two teams that have been right there at the end the past couple of years; obviously they won it last year. But it's a match-up that's obviously making headlines nationally and, of course, here locally. Do you guys feel that and see it?
ROB THOMSON: Well, they are the world champions. And I think there's a buzz every year that we come into this thing. Is there more this year? I don't know, because we haven't really dealt with anything yet. But as the series goes on, I think it will, the buzz will increase.
But I think both these clubs are really matched up well -- good starting pitching, got a lot of thump in both lineups and very veteran groups. So I think they'll be able to handle it.
Q. What will your rotation be for this series?
ROB THOMSON: I've got Sanch tomorrow and I'll announce Monday's starter tomorrow.
Q. Just curious, you guys are familiar with the Dodgers facing them two times in the regular season, but what did you see out of their offense and their Wild Card sweep of the Reds that allow them to be so explosive?
ROB THOMSON: Well, they hit a lot of home runs. They've got a lot of slug in their lineup. And they proved to everyone that they can also win games and score runs without slugging.
They've got a lot of veteran hitters that grind at-bats. They know the strike zone and they don't get out of the strike zone a whole lot. You have to pitch them very, very well.
Q. (Inaudible) both teams are very explosive. How important is it for the Phils to manufacture runs in this season?
ROB THOMSON: It all depends on their pitching. They've got really good starting pitching. You get into a tight ball game and their guy's on, then you may have to do some things.
I do like the slug and the ability of us to slug. But I like the ability for us to be able to manufacture runs when we need to. We've showed that over the course of the year.
Q. How much do you think you guys learned from facing Shohei the first time? And a second part to that, how much did Cristopher learn the last time he faced the Dodgers?
ROB THOMSON: That's a good question. I don't know exactly how much. I can't put a number on it. But I do think it helps when you see an opponent. Whether it's a pitcher seeing another offense or an offense seeing another pitcher, I think it helps everybody. And that's when you have to make adjustments.
Q. Your first series against the Dodgers started six months ago tomorrow. How do you weigh that series in your game planning versus the one that happened about three weeks ago?
ROB THOMSON: It's way more about the one three weeks ago, and then just watching them in the Wild Card series and watching them coming down the stretch, I think that's what you base it off of.
What happened six months ago, the teams are a little bit different than they are now. I'm basing it more off the last series.
Q. So this is a position you guys have been in before. You guys had the few days off last season as well. What have you done differently going into this NLDS to kind of make sure that the guys' mindset is ready to go game time tomorrow?
ROB THOMSON: The mindset, they're highly motivated. I'm not really worried about that. It's more about the physical part of it. We did more velocity training, more breaking ball training, trying to really focus on -- focusing in on controlling the strike zone.
And I think the innersquad game the other night did a lot for us, with having 31,000 people here. I think it was a lot more game-like than anything else that we could produce.
Q. Will you go 14 position players and 12 pitchers for this round?
ROB THOMSON: The roster will be out tomorrow.
Q. I know you're not going to announce the rotation until tomorrow, but just as far as evaluating potentially starting three straight lefties against a team, are Luzardo and Sanchez different (inaudible) Suarez that makes that a little more comfortable if it comes to that?
ROB THOMSON: You mean Luzardo and Sanchy are different? Yeah, they are. Luzardo is more of a power guy, and Ranger is more of the finesse guy. I think it's kind of two different guys, so, it's not like we're pitching the same guy back to back. I'm comfortable with that if that's what we do.
Q. You set some lofty goals -- we talked about this for Trea at the beginning of the season. While he didn't reach those numbers he had an excellent year. Looking back at it, even -- were you trying to set targets that even though they weren't attainable was creating a certain mindset or approach that actually ultimately worked for him?
ROB THOMSON: I think whenever you have goals, you overdo it a little bit. Just keep that carrot out there for them. Trea had a heck of a year, and he did pretty much exactly what we need him to do and he got it done.
Consequently, he scored a lot of runs, our ballclub scored a lot of runs. Schwarber has all these RBIs just because Trea's on base a little bit more. It really worked out well.
Q. How critical do you think it will be to push their starting pitchers out off the game as earlier as you can, but, also, how do you make sure you're not too passive when you're trying to build their pitch count maybe earlier in the games?
ROB THOMSON: It's a balance there. And that's a good question. I think our goal, doesn't matter who we're facing try to get the starter out of the game as soon as we can. So that's really what our game plan is. I don't think it's a secret.
Yeah, we'll try to do the best we can, to your point, not be too passive, where we're taking a strike or something like that. We're not going to do that. But what we really want to do is keep the ball in the strike zone. That's really the goal. If you can do that, you'll build pitch counts.
Q. You talked about Shohei, but also you have to face Shohei as pitcher tomorrow. What have you seen when you saw of him a couple of weeks ago?
ROB THOMSON: A couple weeks ago was probably his best start of the year. He was phenomenal. It's the combination of power and control, command, stuff. He was really good. He was pumping strikes and it was 98, 99. And the secondary pitches are all way above-average. So if he's doing that, it's a tough task.
Q. I think the Dodgers bullpen being in such a state of flux, has it created a challenge for you as far as really having no idea who they're going to bring in since the starters out?
ROB THOMSON: I think once we know their roster, I think you can kind of figure out where they're going to set their pockets. So and then you react accordingly. That's all you can do. But I think that they're going to, once the starter is out, they're just going to match up until the end of the game.
Q. (Inaudible) and their potential closer?
ROB THOMSON: Yeah, it's really good. It's power. It's basically fastball, split. We heard about he's coming up with a cutter, but to our eyes we haven't seen that yet.
He's going to come right after you, and it's a big arm for a short period of time.
Q. One of the things that makes this Dodgers' lineup so potent is their complementary guys at the bottom of the lineup, how important is it to be aggressive early in the counts against the guys at the top of the lineup sew you're not following behind when you get to the bottom?
ROB THOMSON: It's always important to get ahead, no matter who you're facing. That's, I think, every pitcher on the planet, that's their game plan is to try and get ahead. So the numbers show it.
If you're 0-1 or 0-2, the numbers against a hitter, the hitter's numbers go way down as opposed to 1-0/2-0. For me it doesn't matter what part of the lineup you're in, get ahead.
Q. Being in the playoffs a few years in a row now, you've gotten to do the NLDS where the first two games are back-to-back days and the extra off day. When you have the extra off day, how does that change how aggressive you can be with your pitching staff and just kind of game planning?
ROB THOMSON: It all depends on your starting pitcher. If he's lights out, then you stay with him.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports