NEW YORK — The Guardians fell to the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the American Championship Series 5-2 on Monday.
Here is what Guardians manager Stephen Vogt had to say after Game 1. Transcript courtesy of MLB:
Q. Is Alex Cobb okay?
STEPHEN VOGT: We’re still checking him out. His left hip was really tightening up on him and a little bit of back spasms going on as well. So we’re still checking him out and just unfortunate that it happened.
Q. Can you just take us through the thought process to going to Joey Cantillo, going to him when you did, and what were you seeing with him?
STEPHEN VOGT: When Cobb started to feel the tightness in his hip and back spasms, we went out to check on him to make sure he was all right. He was kind of in and out, and we wanted to see if he could get a few more outs.
Joey has done a good job for us coming out of the bullpen, and that inning just kind of got away from us, and that was it.
Q. Can you go over Pedro Avila’s relief appearance in that spot of the game, when it looked like the game was getting away, he gave you guys an option to get back in the game. His first appearance in the postseason. Can you go over it?
STEPHEN VOGT: Yeah, Pedro’s great. He’s done that for us all year. He has come in and stopped the bleeding and stopped the game and continued to get outs for us. Pedro has been phenomenal in that role for us all year long. So it was great to see him back on the mound doing it.
Q. Stephen, what exactly was going wrong with Cantillo?
STEPHEN VOGT: His command. He looked a little sped up at first, but then it just looked like he was having a hard time finding the strike zone. We’ve seen Joey the last month, month and a half been great, so it was very uncharacteristic of him.
Q. The nine walks, how much is just you guys didn’t bear down and how much is the Yankees just working the strike zone?
STEPHEN VOGT: Probably a little bit of both. We talked about this before the series started, these guys work the count. They don’t chase a whole lot. I think, if I take something away from tonight, we just need to attack the zone better, and we didn’t tonight. They made us work.
Q. What did you see on the obstruction call?
STEPHEN VOGT: I saw from my angle, when Brayan Rocchio rounded the base, Hill was in his way. So he obstructed him from going or interfered with him going to second base, and then on the way back, obstructed him from getting back to the base.
I didn’t hear the explanation, but that is what I saw is exactly what they called.
Q. About that play as well, it looked like Rocchio took a hard turn, potentially intending to get the obstruction call. It didn’t look like he was actually going to go to second. Was that a heads up play where he was trying to draw the call or no?
STEPHEN VOGT: It just looked like he was running to second base and Hill was in his way.
Q. Talking about Rocchio, a lot has been talked about his defense and what the Guardians do on the field, but also the way he’s hitting this postseason, his first home run in the postseason, can you talk a little bit about it?
STEPHEN VOGT: Rocchio’s had a great postseason for us offensively and defensively. He’s had a great year defensively and has really stepped up for us.
That’s the beauty of this team, we don’t stop. Even tonight where it felt like we were out of it, we got the tying run to the plate multiple times. This team doesn’t quit, and that’s what I love the most about them. I know we’re going to come back out tomorrow ready to go and fight like we do.
Q. Did Carlos Rodón do anything that was surprising to you guys or that you weren’t expecting tonight?
STEPHEN VOGT: He made pitches. He was hitting the top rail of his fastball, threw some good change-ups, threw some cutters to our lefties. He’s a good pitcher. He got a lead and pitched like a good pitcher pitches with a lead.
