Oct. 26 Joe Maddon postgame interview

Q. Joe, you often talk about the importance of scoring first. How important was that tonight? And for Jake to do what he did? JOE MADDON: We did. That’s our goal. That’s our mantra on a nightly basis. If you look at this playoff run for everybody, the team that scores first normally has a pretty good advantage. We want to do it all the time. Then that probably did permit Jake, maybe the improper word is to relax, but he got settled in better. Overall he had great stuff. His command, a little bit scattered at times, but he kept battling through. Didn’t give up any hits. Finally it was like 96 or 98 pitches by the time I took him out. I think a lot of it he just had a hard time gripping the baseball. It was kind of difficult with that. But great stuff. Great stuff. I thought Willson did a really good job with him tonight, also. I thought they worked well together. But scoring first is always something you want to do.Q. You’ve addressed this a few times, I think, but what are the chances that Schwarber will be able to play left field in Game 3? Will tomorrow help determine that at all? Does one day make any difference? Where are you guys at with that? JOE MADDON: That’s going to be what the doctors tell us. I have no idea. We’re going to go back. We have mandatory workout tomorrow, so we’re going to be at the ballpark. If it’s okay, possibly you might see him taking some fly balls, if there’s any chance at all. But I honestly don’t know. That’s something I’m waiting to hear from our guys, from our medical side, because obviously he looks good. He looks good at the plate. Running the bases he looks pretty good so far. I talked to him there before his last at-bat. I asked him if he got on base if he was good to go. He said, yes, and I said, okay, fine. Good to go as far as running. I said, “Just make sure you stay smart with it.” And there’s nothing about watching him that tells me that he’s inhibited right now.Q. Speaking of Schwarber again, what has his presence in the middle of your lineup done for the rest of the guys? JOE MADDON: You saw, he jacks everybody up. Those couple big hits he got, again, really Rizzo really responded to it well. The whole group did. It makes your lineup longer. It makes it thicker. It makes it better. Zobrist is seeing better pitches right now because of that, too, I believe. So we knew what it would be like all year long. We didn’t have it. And now we’re going to have it in a short spurt right now, and it’s kind of fun. It’s a great weapon to have. You see how he’s taking pitches that are just borderline. I don’t know if that last pitch was a strike or not, but he’s really seeing the ball well. And that’s the part that’s probably the most amazing part. Hitting the ball is one thing, but you can see he’s not jumpy. He’s seeing borderline pitches, staying off a ball, he’s not check swinging and offering. That’s the part that’s really impressive to me.Q. Schwarber again, you’ve been in the game a long time, does anyone comparable come to mind this guy not playing April 7th to October 25th, and performing at the level that he is? JOE MADDON: No, no. I mean, I’ve seen guys come back from injuries during the season, but they’ve gone through rehab and they didn’t have that severe of an injury to come back and play. I don’t think there’s any real comp for it. I don’t. Nothing that I’ve seen. I’m just going through the mental Rolodex right now. I don’t think I’ve seen that. You know, CC (Carl Crawford) came back from a pretty good injury …

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