Well, the two free passes, the hit by pitch, the walk, and he had Stanton 1-2 and just couldn't put him away and then, you know, gets a pop up and he's, you know, one hit away from getting out of it and leaves a slider arm side to Volpe and, you know, that was the difference in that inning.

I know you talk like pregame about you're going to have to be careful picking your spots with guys.

Is that a situation, especially when he's, you know, kind of struggling to find the zone where you think it all about maybe getting somebody else up for the rest of the inning or is that going to be his inning the whole time?

Yeah, I mean, I think that was his inning.

I mean, I think he was at 20 pitches, something like that.

He had Volpe up, so it's, I'm not going to go get somebody in the third inning to get Volpe where he just popped a guy up and, you know, uncharacteristic with the hit by pitch, the walk, so yeah, it was his inning.

Right behind Jack, Bill?

Yeah, and just to follow up on that, you had Volpe, but also Wells and Verdugo were lined up, but that would have been too early to use a Bonda there or Vecchia or are you trying to stay away from them completely today?

Well, I mean, it's, you know, I'm not going to use them in the third inning right there.

Yeah, I just wasn't going to use them in the third inning, no.

And knowing, obviously, choice number one is to win tonight, but since that didn't happen, I don't mean this to sound flip, did this outcome in terms of pitching play out as well as you hoped?

Absolutely, absolutely.

I don't think anyone expected those guys to lay down and we had some at-bats that I thought could have been better, but we knew it was a bullpen game and, you know, as far as outcomes to have, you know, six guys in your pen that are feeling good, rested, I feel good about that and being up 3-1, yeah.

We'll go to Barry on the right and then Juan.

Hey, Doc, just piggybacking off of that, how do you feel about the bullpen for the rest of the series, especially since I think you used more guys last night than you did tonight?

Yeah, I feel great, I feel great.

It's about, you know, the guys that you have available, some of those guys are, they're all rested, so we have guys that can do up-down, so where we're at with tomorrow, knowing there's an off day behind that, we're in a great spot with levered relievers.

I'm guessing you must be glad that this is the last time in the playoffs you have to do this, you have actual starters for the next three games.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, absolutely.

On your left, Dave Juan.

Dave, after that fifth inning, you guys were only down a run, like how challenging is it to kind of balance out whether you want to write an act for a couple more innings as opposed to maybe going some leveraged guys?

It's challenging.

I think that you've got to be certain that you can score some runs, there's certainly any guy that we use tonight would have not been able to pitch tomorrow.

Landon actually threw the ball very well, and then when they got, you know, I thought his work was done for any Samosi Stone in quite some time, and being down two, going into that last half, it just doesn't make sense to use one of your leveraged guys.

And then with Otani, what are you seeing from his at-bats, and is the shoulder kind of messing up some mechanics?

You know, I mean, we've asked him many times over, and it's not impeding, he doesn't feel it, I just think it's just the chase, you see it.

I mean, there's some big at-bats that, you know, could result in a walk and not taking the base, and chasing hasn't been good.

We'll stay on that same road, Dave.

Hi Dave, just following up on Otani as well, how about on the base paths, how do you evaluate his base running with the shoulder?

I think it's been fine so far, you know, he actually slid tonight, so I don't think that it's been a problem.

I mean, he's not going to be stealing bases, I wouldn't think, but I think it hasn't been too much of a problem right now.

Just with your experience with being down 3-0, you were on the other side, like you mentioned yesterday, what's the feeling in the clubhouse on your side now, like, do you guys kind of feel like you, you know, maybe lost one, like, obviously you did lose one, but like, let one go today, or?

No, no, I mean, I think that they beat us, Volpe took a good swing, they took advantage of a couple free passes, they tacked on later.

I do think that, at bat-wise, I think we could have done some things to get in their pen a little bit earlier, but again, at the end of the day, we're still in a pretty good spot and we feel good.

We'll be ready to go tomorrow.

Jack, on your left.

Could you see what happened with Mookie on that fly ball in the first inning, and I don't know if you've gone back and watched it since, if you had a reaction to when he went up into the crowd and the fan?

No, I thought he had a beat on it, and he was, you know, the fans got in the way and the umpires got it right.

Two more, Gabe, and then Ron.

Just to reiterate, there was really no circumstance today where you would have chased the game in a sense, and was it at all tempting 6-4 on the 8th to think, well?

No, not 6-4 on the 8th, no, it wasn't.

No, no.

And we'll finish up with Ron, first row on your right.

How sky-high is the feeling in the dugout after Freddie's homer there in the first inning, and do you, even though you don't have to remind the guys there's 27 outs to go, do you have to remind them?

I don't.

I think that, you know, we were very high, we were excited.

Those guys, you know, fortunately answered back, it was a good ball game until it wasn't.

I don't need to remind them that there's 27 outs.

We do a very good job of playing 27 outs.

All right, Dave, thank you so much, we'll see you tomorrow, appreciate it.