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Oct. 11 Yordano Ventura pregame interview

Q. How is the arm feeling?

YORDANO VENTURA: He feels good, thank God, and he's ready to go.

Q. What happened to your cheek?

YORDANO VENTURA: He's got a friend that came to visit, but tomorrow he's going to send him home.

(Laughter.)

Q. With tomorrow's start it will have been an unusual schedule for you in terms of days rest and then the few pitches that you threw the other day. Will that affect your rhythm at all or your preparation?

YORDANO VENTURA: That plan was set up like that from the beginning and he feels good, he recovers quick, his arm feels good and he'll be ready to go tomorrow.

Q. A start that's obviously this important, do you approach it any differently than you would a regular season start?

YORDANO VENTURA: Obviously it's a different situation, but his routine is going to remain the same. He's got a good defense behind him and he's ready to go for tomorrow. He'll attack the strike zone, let his defense play.

Q. What did you learn that first game that's going to be able to help you tomorrow?

YORDANO VENTURA: Yeah, he learns quickly, thank God, and he'll be ready to go tomorrow. He's got eight guys behind him that can play defense, he's got a team that supports him, and he'll be ready to pitch tomorrow.

Q. What's the difference between challenging a hitter pitching to contact and leaving a ball over the middle of the plate? Is it a matter of just like three, four inches, that ball that they can square up, where it might just be a couple inches?

YORDANO VENTURA: It's very minimal. The way he described it was he's always trying to make good quality pitches in the bottom of the zone and to the corners, but once you make a mistake, these guys are Big League hitters and it's very minimal.