What the Athletics and Astros are saying after Oakland’s Game 3 comeback
The Oakland A’s have extended their postseason run at least one more day.
They defeated the Houston Astros 9-7 Wednesday in Game 3 of their American League Divisional Series, staving off elimination to narrow the Astros’ lead in the series to 2-1.
Here’s what the A’s and Astros said after the game:
Athletics manager Bob Melvin
On Pinder home run and the momentum shift: “That was more like an earthquake than a shift. Off the bat, the way it’s carrying today, you think maybe. But as soon as Tucker kept going back, you had a pretty good idea that it had a chance to go out. He’s got tremendous power to all fields.”
On Hendriks: “I just had to get him in the game. I just couldn’t let him sit out there and wait. We had to shut them down, the part of the order that was coming up. (TBS analyst Jeff) Francoeur was asking before the game, ‘Would you use him for three?’ and I go ‘I don’t know about three.’ But with his pitch count as manageable as it was, really wasn’t that tough a decision once I talked to him in between innings.”
On the catcher’s interference call: “We didn’t have it, but I’m not sure if he called it right away or if Tucker influenced him. We thought it was a foul tip, that’s what we heard.”
On the Laureano blooper: “Sometimes they don’t look great but they end up being huge hits through the course of the game. Maybe not 110 off the bat like some of the others.”
On La Stella: “Unbelievable how it missed the pad completely and hit him right on the elbow … He got an x-ray, no fracture, no break, so we’ll see how he’s doing tomorrow.”
On starter tomorrow: “Montas’ll start tomorrow. Shoot, we live another day and you’ll take it.”
On sacrifice flies rather than home runs: “We’re just fighting tooth and nail to try to come back. The game had i don’t know how many lead changes.”
Jesús Luzardo
On his outing: “I felt pretty good throughout my whole outing. Made two mistakes, which were pretty costly, but glad we were able to pull it out.”
On Hendriks: “We wouldn’t be here without him and we’re glad to have him on our side.”
On Pinder HR: “It feels like every time we make a comeback, me and Petit are together watching it.”
On mindset Game 3 vs. Game 2: “As Pinder said earlier we knew this was going to be a dogfight and as you can tell, it is.”
On Montas going Game 4: “We’re extremely confident. That’s my boy so i got his back no matter what. I know he’s going to go out there and do his thing.”
A’s third baseman Chad Pinder
On plan for the at-bat: “Get something up in the zone early in the count. Guy has good stuff but just want to get something up, try to elevate the ball.”
After he hit it: “I didn’t know but I saw him drifting a bit and the ball has been carrying here a bit. I hit it good enough for a sac fly but it just kept carrying.”
Before the HR: “Right before that inning Ramon got everybody up and said this wasn’t it.”
On Ramon: It was in between innings. “You could kind of just feel when we got into the dugout that the energy was kind of getting down again, just getting that flatline feeling again and Ramon wasn’t having any of that.”
On Hendriks: “That was incredible. Again, Liam has been lights out for us the past two years. That’s not easy to do. That’s not easy to do two ups, but to do three ups and shut it down like that… Liam has time and time again just closed the door in big situations. That’s the guy we want out there in the ninth inning. It just happened to be the seventh, eighth and ninth today.”
On his mentality: “I’m more along the lines of calming myself down. Really just trying to focus on what i’m doing at the plate … trying not to make the moment bigger than it is.”
On Ramon’s speech: “He got my heartrate up and I had to calm it down before I got up there. Good thing I had two batters before I got up there.”
On hamstring issue: “I’m doing everything I possibly can in the training room. Treatment every morning and stuff postgame just trying to keep it where it is. There have been times this series where I’ve been jammed up and had to try to leg it out and just got what I got.”
On hitting third: “I got a text this morning that I was third base, hitting third. That does give you confidence, like all right, everybody believes in you, everyone knows what you can do. And once that first pitch starts you’ve got to lock it in.”
On Liam Hendriks’ mentality: “You see that look in his eye and you don’t want to say anything to pull him out of that. You kind of let him do his things… You do that with pitchers. You know the ones that you pat ‘em on the butt, but you let Liam go compete.”
A’s closer Liam Hendriks
On pitching three innings: “(Melvin) told me to be ready early, so apparently I was ready early. I go down at my normal time and got a call when I was down there with Diek in the sixth inning … You gotta wrench that ball out of my hand, I don’t want to give it up.”
On Pinder’s home run: “That’s the thing: once our backs are against the wall, suddenly everything changes … The reaction from the bullpen was exaltation.”
On the team’s mentality: “It’s been special. When we start getting a little chippy or chirpy in the dugout or in the bullpen, that’s when things start to happen.”
On availability for Game 4: “I threw less pitches than I did last time, I just happened to double my innings and outs. Yeah, I think I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”
On shadows: “Grossman came in after his at-bat with Scrubb and said ‘Hey Liam, just go right after them. You can’t see anything.’”
On connection to Grant Balfour: Everyone says ‘oh you’re Australian so you’re a little crazy,’ and I take offense to that. I’m a lot crazy.”
On Reddick smashing his bat after strikeout: “I may give it a day, I may give it til the end of the series before I text him because that might be a little bit of a low blow.”
Astros manager Dusty Baker
On the loss: “It’s tough to take, but we got to come back and win tomorrow… That ball was flying out there.”
On pitching getting thinner: “We’re a little thin. Whoever starts tomorrow we need some innings out of them, as many innings as possible to limit our bullpen action.”
On not knowing who his starter tomorrow is: “It’s tough. But, you know, life is tough. Sometimes you don’t know about tomorrow, sometimes you’d like to know about tomorrow today, but you don’t.”
On if he’s worried: “We’re still in the lead. This team has been here before. These guys don’t seem really worried about it. We got beat today. We made some mistakes, and hopefully we don’t make those mistakes tomorrow.”
On amount of home runs: “I knew it was going to be crazy from the beginning. You can tell from the way the ball’s jumping. … the way that ball is carrying, you can tell, their team was flirting with that wall all day. Even balls that they missed was going all the way to the wall. You’re living on the edge of your seat when the ball is flying like that.”
On if he was looking forward to Game 4: “No, not really. It’s in the back of your mind, but you’re trying to win today. Obviously you don’t want to go through your whole bullpen, but you’re thinking about today’s game today, and tomorrow we’ll think about that game.”
On playing with shadows: “It’s extremely tough. … You want the lead going into the eighth or ninth because you know you’re not going to be able to see. You want to get a big lead early before the shadows set in … It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous as hell… My mother was in insurance, and she said most accidents happen at dusk. I found that to be true.”
Astros reliever Josh James
What he did between outings: “It’s tough but, you know, people want to be put in that situation. You always feel like you’re the right man for the job. No matter how long it’s been, you go out and compete. Today, I got beat. Tomorrow is another day, another opportunity.”
Astros pitcherJose Urquidy
On pressure with the ball carrying the way it was: “I have to see what pitches they are hitting and throw my best stuff. But I don’t have anything to say — they played well. We have another game tomorrow that we have to win.”
“I felt comfortable out there. I didn’t have any problem with the strike zone, I wasn’t throwing a lot of balls. They just made a lot of contact and with the way the ball is flying it favored the hitters.”
Astros third baseman Alex Bregman
On if tomorrow is a must-win: “I think every time we take the field we want to consider as that. We want to go out there and play well and win. We didn’t do that today. Brand new day tomorrow when the clock strikes midnight. We’ll show up tomorrow. I thought we put together some good at-bats today, and I thought we looked good offensively. Sometimes you don’t win.”