Oct. 4 Buck Showalter postgame interview

Q. Buck, was everything OK with Zach Britton? If so, why was he not used? BUCK SHOWALTER: He was fine. He was fine.

Q. Did you consider using him at any point? BUCK SHOWALTER: Yeah, I considered a lot of things during the course of the game, but our guys did a good job getting us to that point. We just couldn’t finish it off. Yeah, he was available.

Q. I guess is it the philosophical thing of not wanting to use your closer in a tie game on the road? BUCK SHOWALTER: No, same thing, eighth inning, ninth inning, I liked the job that Darren could do, I liked the job that Brad could do, I liked the job that Michael could do, I liked the job that Duensing could do. It looked like it was going to be one of those that was more than one inning. Nobody has been pitching better for us than Ubaldo, too. So there’s a lot of different ways to look at it, so that’s the way we went. It didn’t work out. Has nothing to do with philosophical.

Q. Buck, you talked a whole lot about this format of the whole Wild Card game. How tough is it to lose so suddenly like that? BUCK SHOWALTER: You know, it’s the risk you take any time you put yourself in — it’s a good position to be in the playoffs, but you know it’s because you haven’t won your division that there’s this potential for this. So that’s tough. But you know the description going in, what you’re going to have to do and not do.

There’s so many different things that go on. You can use Zach Britton in the seventh and eighth inning and not have anybody to pitch the last inning. So there’s a lot of risk taken every inning, every pitch. You take that on when you get in this format.

Q. Buck, with the season on the line, do you regret not having your best relief pitcher in the game at all and leaving him on the bench? BUCK SHOWALTER: You could do afterwards, yeah. But we went for about four innings there trying to get to that spot. It looked like if he pitches a couple innings, if he can …

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