ALCS Game 6: Girardi postgame interview

October 21st, 2017

Q. Severino had an issue with walks in the fifth inning. What was different?
JOE GIRARDI: He just lost his command. He pitched up fairly effectively tonight, but he just kind of lost it up even a little bit more. You know, it happens. And they took advantage of it.
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Q. What did you think of Verlander compared to Game 2?
JOE GIRARDI: He was really good again. You know, the thing in the two starts we faced him, he hasn't been behind in counts and he's thrown a ton of strikes. I looked up at one point on the board and he had faced like 13 or 14 hitters, and there was like 10 balls and 40-something strikes. I thought our bats were decent off him, we hit some balls hard off him. But again, he was ahead in the count and pitched really effectively.
Q. You are 4-0 in elimination games, another test tomorrow night. What have you liked about what you've been able to do in those games?
JOE GIRARDI: The way we've come out and the way we bounced back in certain games. We've won all kind of different games; we've won some high-scoring games, we've won I think a 1-0. It's a situation our guys have been in a lot. I think you have to keep tonight's game in perspective. We still have a shot to do what we want to try to do tomorrow. And put tonight behind you, move on, and let's be ready to go tomorrow.
Q. When you look at Robertson and what he did, that's very surprising, you're not used to seeing that. Was there one particular thing wrong?
JOE GIRARDI: I think it just came down to location. He's a guys that relies on location a lot. It looked like the pitch he threw to Altuve was a really good pitch. Altuve just did a really good job.
Q. Do you feel like the Sanchez at-bat was a big moment in the game?
JOE GIRARDI: Yeah, that was one. And the next inning we had first and second, nobody out. And Frazier hits the ball 400 feet and gets nothing to show for it. Springer made a really nice play on it. Those two innings were the two innings we had to capitalize on, and we weren't able to do it.

Q. , you probably won't have tomorrow?
JOE GIRARDI: No. I'll have everybody else though.
Q. With CC, just in terms of your faith in him for Game 7?
JOE GIRARDI: Well, a lot. We've seen it so many times. And we're going to need him to come up big tomorrow. He's done it a couple of different times in the playoffs, during the course of the season, and something that I think he loves to do is pitch in these type of situations. And we need him to come up big.
Q. Why do you think you guys have had such a disparity between hitting at Yankee Stadium against these guys and here?
JOE GIRARDI: It's hard to say. Again, I thought our bats were better off of Verlander, we didn't score anymore, but I thought our at-bats were better. It's hard to say. I think there's some comfort to being at home. More teams have a better home record than away record, that's just the way baseball is.