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Every start is an opportunity to get better and to learn how your body is feeling and what you need to do moving forward. It's been an evolution throughout the year.
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.
I've always just kind of prided myself on just taking the ball and just trying to give your team a chance to win, and I really don't try to make it any more complicated than that.
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.
You can have really good statistics, which are really good, and it's a serious advantage, but when push comes to shove, it's about players communicating and players playing together.
The season is long. You go through aches and pains with your brothers. When it's on the line, you just want to give them - you know, you want to perform. You want to give them a shot to win the game.
Altuve is just so good at that. He can decide halfway to the plate where he's going to place the ball. I've never seen that kind of talent before in my life, and I don't know if I'll ever see it again.
I think that's kind of the common theme when you talk about any good team. Not only do you have the talent and the type of players that allow you to win that many games, but you have to win the ugly ones.
Strikeouts are something that just happen. You don't go for strikeouts, because your pitch count gets too high. When you do get that opportunity, you have to put them away with whatever is working that day.
When they have the lead, you don't want to fall into too predictable counts because they're playing with house money at that point. You want to try to be creative and keep them off-balance as much as you can.
You never want to have Yadier Molina up with the bases loaded in the World Series, but, dammit, you wouldn't want a better hitter up. Maybe that's not the way most people think, I don't know. That's how I think.
Any time you can get in a position to start to get some of the quality work in as early as possible, I think it gives you a leg up or at least gives you the opportunity to be really prepared for the first time you take the ball.
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.
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.
David Price comes and finds me out in the lobby and says, 'Dude, I really enjoy watching you pitch.' I'm just like, 'What's wrong with you? Watch your own games, bro. I just throw fastballs inside. You're painting all over the place, striking the world out.'
I think if we just stay focused on what we focus on, which is ourselves, playing good ballgames, trying to win every day, don't take wins with us, don't take losses with us, if we just stay with that approach the results are going to be what they're going to be.
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.
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.
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.