MIke Shildt on Padres scary rotation, dominant Dylan Cease and series win vs Cardinals

MIke Shildt on Padres scary rotation, dominant Dylan Cease and series win vs Cardinals

Mike, I imagine you’re pretty pleased with all the the different ways that you won that ball game in in the middle innings. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the whole game really. I mean, it was almost an unblen unblenmished game, you know, a little hiccup uh in the ninth. Um but yeah, man, everything on display today, you know, usually starts on the hill. Dylan was fantastic. Um recovered from a longer first inning, 28 pitches, able to sit at 90 and um go to our bullpen from there. But um a lot of good baseball. Toddy set the tone. Just really loved his game today. You know, the hustle double. Um the competitiveness at third base, always hunting the ball in the dirt. Um probably a little bit less than a coin flip, but thought about maybe taking home, which would be awesome one day. I think he’ll probably do it again. Um maybe not there was the right spot but Oriano fantastic you know using the whole field and you know obviously the opposite field homer for mean using the small game then using the opposite field approach again peek up arc hitting that mean we can’t hit balls at the ballparkiano clearly did it strong guy um but I really like bats as well and you know got his his knock as well and then Crony of course you know got us started we just couldn’t quite cave get him to cave early on and finally we we uh knocked the door down a little bit and went from there. You mentioned CE. You can work with that version of of Dylan, I imagine. Um, what did you see besides, you know, he’s mixing things up a little bit more. What What did you see a little bit more sweeper and slider fast ball? You know, my first observation early on was fast ball in to righty’s a little bit more. So, that opens things up for him. Um and again the first inning longer inning, you know, still punches out the side, but um 28 pitches and then you saw him go into really the best version of Dylan the second through the fifth. What does that version of Dylan mean for kind of how scary your rotation can be with getting some guys back and some guys you’ve added? Very scary. You know, it’s very encouraging. We’re very excited. You know, Darvis is building off his seven innings. Nick’s been great. Um you know, Michael, from what I understand, was good today in his rehab. you know, 31 pitches. So, we’ll see what that looks like. Um, if I got that correct and Dylan was tremendous today. And, you know, like I said, it looks like the second through the fifth where it’s, you know, really crisp. Um, controlling counts, closer misses. Um, you know, he can get his strikeouts. Let’s just do it in five pitches, four pitches, you know, couple early, uh, two pitch outs. You know, that version is the 67. And we are going to need six and seven innings. starters, you know, occasionally. That’s going to be important as well. Mike, we’ve seen Jackson Merrell kind of have a sophomore slump at times earlier this year, but now he’s really come back. 11 runs driven in the last seven games. What have you seen from him to be able to come up in these big spots? Yeah, I mean, Jackson is just a good player, right? and um started off where he left off last year as we know got sidetracked a couple different times. actually came back from the hamstring in a really good spot and um you know went through a stretch there for a couple weeks where um you know the game is the game you know it’s going to get you at some point occasionally and um but great players is just that it’s very occasionally and um talked about it during it um had full confidence in it um that what was going to happen is happening now Jack’s a good player you know he’s he’s a winner he’s got a part of a line he’s got you know the championship pedigree and mentality and way he approaches it. And most importantly, Jackson is beyond being a great player, Jackson’s a team player. Jackson cares about the Padres. So when you’re have that mindset and you just want to win, yeah, you want to contribute with the bat, which clearly did today. That was a big three-run triple today. Um, you know, big two-run single a couple days ago. Um, big solo homer yesterday. Um, but he also went out and dropped homers and thrown people out on bases and made web gems and ran the face as well and and continued to be a good um guy that we can count on to to talk in the game before the game about competition. So, you know, he’s he’s helps us win regardless how he’s doing. You know, for a guy that’s been around for so long like Jay Cron, this is only his 17th game ever where he’s had eighth in the lineup. Is there any sort of different approach that a guy like that has to take when it’s something he’s not really used to at all? Uh, I I don’t I would I can’t answer for Jake. He can give you a better answer, you know, himself. But, um, you know, the one thing about Jake is Jake’s just going to take a tough at bat and do what the game calls for. You know, Toddy says that and it’s one of our mantras and Jake has a feel for what that looks like. You know, Jake had I think 84 RBI’s for us last year hitting more towards the middle and then as we went and Jackson progressed, you know, he he was a good teammate and went to the to the middle to the bottom. Right now we got a really good lineup that I like a lot. You know, you got allar that’s, you know, hitting six. Oriano’s, you know, been able to hit righties and lefties and, you know, it just slots in a little more balance to the lineup, you know, where guys can’t come in and there’s not really a comfortable lane for anybody. Um, and it’s at the moment it it suits Jake at eight. Um, and you know, but Jake’s going to take good at bats and win regardless where he play. And we saw Joe Muskro finally get the first bullpen. You know, what kind of reaction going out today? Yeah, what a what a nice um what a nice site. You know, I didn’t want to there’s a lot of rightfully a lot of crowd there and you know, I want to support Joe and Joe knows that. I stay out of the bullpin. That’s the pitchers and Ruben and Fritzy and and the pitching group’s domain. Um but I went out and saw him play catch and you know, I timed my walk appropriately. I walk around and I could see his peak a little bit. He looked um very aggressive and everything looked clean. nothing was forced and seemed like everything was, you know, coming out very very clean. The arm was working and and the body language was really good and he recovered well. So, it’s encouraging, but you know, it’s it’s it’s a really big step, you know, to get on that slab and get a catcher down and throw 15 pitches. Um there’s more steps to go any going into the uh trade market. How much did you want home run production to go up your team? I think you’re always looking for home run production to increase. Um but you’re really just looking for winning players. You know, I didn’t what anything I said like man home run production, you I just winning players is where we found the table and we just received them. These guys no particular order. Miller Sears who’s going to pitch tomorrow night. Um you know Lauraniano O’Harn for me you know now we got Cortez in the mix. These are winning guys. You know they’re coming in. They’re veteran guys. They got a good presence about them. Um they’re smart. They’re high buck. Strong high character guys. They’re fitting right into our our culture. And they’ll hit the ball over the wall. Yeah, sure. We’ll take that. Uh, I think you just answered it. Sears tomorrow and then Darbish Tuesday. Is that the plan? That’s correct. We’ll we’ll finalize it here shortly, but yes. The right order. Yes, sir.

Padres manager Mike Shildt on Dylan Cease’s dominating outing, why they’re forming a scary rotation, series win versus the Cardinals and why it was nearly a perfect scenario game.