Q. I guess there are some more specific questions to ask, but just generally, what's your take on what the vibes are with this team right now on the morning of a winner take all Game 3?
MIKE SHILDT: Odd are the good. I mean, it is a group again has normalized going and playing and competing and enjoys it, enjoys playing together, and appreciates bigger moments. Everybody has showed up and ready to go.
Q. The fact that Darvish is on the mound, he has had the most starts in Padres postseason history, had a great start in the winner-take-all game last year, how does that help that confidence?
MIKE SHILDT: Definitely nice to have a pillar like Yu Darvish, you know, on the mound for an elimination game. To your point, he has done it multiple times, did it last year, pitched exceptionally well in that moment, last year going six innings, giving up two, a couple hole homers to the Hernándezes.
Look, we have a lot of guys that we would be comfortable with but definitely really comfortable and confident with Darvish.
Q. What sort of presence has Darvish been for this team this season?
MIKE SHILDT: Yeah, listen, he's a guy that -- first of all, he set a record for combined wins for Japanese in Major League Baseball, so that speaks to itself, the winning quality and the traits that Yu Darvish has. He's also -- he is man of few words. He's kind of like the Japanese John Wayne, but he's a big strong presence, so his actions speak louder than words, but when he does use his words, people listen for sure including myself. He's got nice presence to him and guys follow him.
Q. I don't know if you necessarily know yet, but what do you anticipate the availability being for your relievers, specifically Miller and Morejon today?
MIKE SHILDT: Not sure yet. We're going to take their temperature today. Both recovered well yesterday. But they've been throwing. They took down a chunk of the game yesterday really well, obviously. We want to be smart about making sure we use them appropriately, but also clearly go win a baseball game today.
They'll play catch. They'll be honest with us. We'll talk to them, and we'll have a plan that will unfold later today.
Q. It being all hands on deck, is Nick Pivetta an option? I know he just pitched two days ago.
MIKE SHILDT: He's not throwing a side today, so yes, literally all hands are on deck, and we'll put him in the order we think is appropriate.
Q. When it comes to judging which guys are available, guys like Morejon, Miller, their inclination as players is always going to be like, of course we're ready. How do you as a manager kind of figure that out when all your guys are going to say, let's go sort of thing and make decisions based on what's good for the team and what's good for them?
MIKE SHILDT: Yeah, it's a great question and a very fair one. To your point, you're right. To A.J.'s question about Pivetta, they're all coming in saying I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, which of course you want.
We also will have honest conversations about, okay, what is good; what is your internal physical feel of your limitations, and then we'll be the adults, too.
Again, part of my job is obviously to win a game, help the club win a game, and I'm also a good steward of people's careers. We'll try to make them go together and live in one, but they may not, and so we'll have to make those decisions appropriately and clearly let our medical team weigh in, which they already have. A couple with Ruben Niebla, our pitching coach, Ben Fritz, our bullpen coach. Once they play catch, we'll have a better idea of what that looks like.
Q. If I could follow up on that, how much easier is it now to make those determinations based on all of the biomechanics and data and all the stuff you have available to you that measures strength and health compared to maybe even when you started managing a baseball team and working a baseball?
MIKE SHILDT: It helps quite a bit actually. We've already gotten some really favorable reports from talking to Ruben today about both Morejon and Miller from Hawkeye about how they're moving, how their bodies are being efficient. From that standpoint we feel really good heading into today.
Q. Going into I agree less I can't go there, I know you want to be flexible in that lefty lane to have that option. Speak to what went into that decision, the at-bat he took.
MIKE SHILDT: A couple things. Iglesias had numbers on Imanaga. We feel like he's been a little bit of a magic bullet in that lane. We hadn't felt like we needed to use it based on matchups. Again, to the question earlier about informed decisions from my seat, one of the things that I appreciate about the modern game is the technology that allows you to say, this guy's ball flight versus this guy's swing. We have a chance to have a pretty good at-bat.
It's not something we didn't know 10 years ago or 15 years ago, guys are low-ball hitters, sinker-ball hitters, all that, but a little bit more specificity to it, and then we looked up and realized we had first and second. We had an opportunity with a guy that's had good swings; we have a lead. We know we're going to get a good bat from Iglesias, which we did, lined out, and then we put Bryce in there and we got better defensively. So there's a lot of different decisions that went into that, and it's very fluid, as you know.
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