Oct. 18 Yasmani Grandal, Rich Hill postgame interview

Q. Arrieta gets ahead 0-2. What’s your approach at that point, and what did you like about that pitch that you hit out? YASMANI GRANDAL: Basically stay alive. We had a man on second, any contact, anything, you never know what can happen. So stay alive until you get a pitch that he gives you to hit. I mean, he’s been so good for the last couple years just because he doesn’t give in. So fouled off a couple pitches. He still made a really good pitch down in the zone. I was just lucky to put a swing on it and hit it out.Q. Rich, can you run us through the second inning? I mean, Rizzo had a really good at-bat to get that walk when he let off a lot of curveballs, and then it’s two on. Can you go over Russell and Montero there? RICH HILL: Yeah, Yas did a great job of keeping me back, getting me back on track. And, again, I was just executing pitches after that. It was a tough at-bat with the two walks. Just to get back into executing the pitches one pitch at a time, really that was it. Not thinking about the two walks or thinking of any kind of outcomes from those two walks. Just focusing in on executing that pitch and executing the next pitch, execute the next pitch. We were able to do that. And it’s something that — just Yas keeping me focused on where we needed to be in that inning, especially having those two guys get on and then just work our way out of it. That was really the big key, was just focusing in on one-pitch-at-a-time approach.Q. Rich, Joe Maddon said that one of the biggest issues that they’re having right now is weak contact. Is there an art or a way to produce consistent weak contact? RICH HILL: I don’t know if there’s an art to it, I think it’s just kind of the way stuff plays out. I think the thing we did tonight, and Yas can attest to this, it’s keeping hitters off balance and being able to execute strike with a breaking ball, execute fastballs in. We were throwing, for me, more than in previous games, fastballs in and being able to keep — that opens up the outside part of the plate. I think that the weak contact is just the result of — I mean, it’s something that I’ve always had throughout the course of my career as far as being able to throw a fastball in any part of the zone and create a later swing because of the perceptual velocity. But, again, it just comes back to keeping those hitters off balance. And we executed a few changeups that were huge, and just threw another pitch into the mix that they had to think about.Q. Dave said he didn’t think your curveball command particularly was some of your best that he’s seen in your starts here. Would you agree? And how did you sort of move beyond that? RICH HILL: I think it got better as the game went on, curveball command definitely got better as the game went on. I think we were able to establish a fastball and throw-a-strike breaking balls and have them foul off breaking balls when we needed to, foul off fastballs when we needed to. Also with the slider, to be able to mix that in there and give them a different look. Then, again, also dropping down. So that gives another totally different look to the hitter, especially a right-handed hitter.Q. I know you’ve addressed the different pitches. But you did throw more curveballs, more than 50% than you have in the past. Was that deliberate? How is that particular pitch working for you? RICH HILL: Well, I think it’s one of those things that if you have a pitch that’s better than your other pitches, you throw it more, and percentage-wise it should work out in your favor. If you can execute it, then we talk about spin rate, we talk about all these things. The higher the spin rate, the more break, the more depth on the breaking ball, the more vertical drop that you can have, the better it is for the pitcher. We stuck with it tonight, and Yas continued to call a great game back there and stuck with the breaking balls and fastballs in. I can’t — I’m not going to sit here and say it’s not a major part …

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