I mean, our job is - we're baseball players, we have to go to work. But when it all boils down, we're just a bunch of kids out there having fun trying to entertain people.
You've got to try to close every inning out, take it one inning at a time, one batter at a time.
It feels good to be able to contribute, eat innings, provide some rest for the bullpen.
Any opportunity to throw against the Cardinals is going to be a good one.
Every good team is going to have a good culture in the clubhouse.
I feel like, by now, if you don't understand that the playoffs can be somewhat of a crapshoot sometimes, then you don't watch enough baseball.
You don't want to let the other team feed off your outward physical demeanor. But at the same time, you can't go out and play this game and not expect to just be angry and be competitive and be excited and have that fire in your belly.
A lot of these dips that you go through in the season, it's about persisting through the process and trusting it.
If you can constantly just put pressure on all four quadrants, it gives you a little more leverage to be able to fill the zone up with breaking balls and fastball counts - or with breaking balls when guys are maybe sitting on the fastball that you've established.
You continue to try to hammer out fastball command the best you can.
Cleaning up that lack of the definition between the two, and then leaning on the four-seam, having it become my primary fastball over my two-seam, it's just benefited me as a whole.
There's a human element here you start to lose when you start rattling off the best mathematical equation to get the out.
You figure when you match up against other clubs and you go through the lineup one through nine, you get to the nine hole, if you can put together an at-bat or you can see some different pitches that helps give you an advantage competitively, it can make your lineup stronger.
I've obviously learned a lot, a lot of mental toughness, learned how to deal with some adversity. Hopefully I'm better for it.
I think there's a quiet aggression that you need to have, that presence that you have on the mound, the poise, you know.
Well, I mean, I like to be pretty athletic off the mound in terms of taking care of my job, which is covering first base, fielding bunts in certain situations, fielding slow rollers to the first base and having to communicate and direct traffic.
There's no WAR for being a good teammate, so apparently that means older guys can't get paid.
There's a lot of pageantry involved in opening day, flyovers, extra long TV breaks and stuff. To say that it's not important, more so than some other ones, it is. It's the first game of the year. but I got 30 starts to make. Each win or loss is equally as important.
When you're more comfortable out there, you start seeing different things, relaxing more, being able to trust your pitches more and not try to overdo things as much.
You know in a playoff atmosphere anything can happen.
