As seen on FS Wisconsin:
On walking Miguel Montero to get to Paul Goldschmidt, who hit a grand slam in the fifth inning:
Before Goldschmidt went deep today, did you guys think that was the wrong move or the right move? That's the dilemma that a manager has, and you guys that have been with me know that I don't like walking people. And there we go again.
Is Shaun Marcum injured?
I don't think he's battling anything. His command isn't where it was early, but I think in the first inning he fought to get through that, gave up a couple of runs there but if we get a call there they probably don't score. I thought he threw the ball ok after that. The home run was supposed to be a fastball in and he threw it right down the middle. Big mistake there that hurt him. But a couple of the middle innings he was ok, his command just isn't pinpoint like it was early.
Why doesn't he like to give out intentional walks?
It bites us because we make bad pitches. That's why it bites us. Sometimes a tough one is when you have an open base. I think that was the right move, I still do. But do I like it? No, I don't like it. You load the bases sometimes when you have an open base, when you load 'em it puts that pitcher in a position where if he gets behind in the count he's in big trouble. I just thought today Montero looked pretty good against Shaun and I thought it was the right move.
Why can't the Brewers hit Josh Collmenter?
That's what the coaching staff is asking ourselves, "Why is this guy so tough?" But you're right, we haven't hit him for three games now and just two hits off him. We didn't square up too many other balls. Corey Hart had a lineout to third but aside from that we didn't square up a lot of balls. It's just something about that deception on the fastball, and his changeup is very good. The changeup is down in the zone always, and he's got great motion on it, and then he spots his fastball well. I don't know. I've looked at other games that he's pitched and I've seen some where he's pitched well and some where he hasn't done as well and it comes down to command on that fastball. I can't see corners, but it looked like he commanded the fastball pretty good.
Did he know he was taking a big chance by loading the bases for Goldschmidt?
I know the kid's got big hits, but Montero scares me. Montero's a really good hitter. There's not a lot of places you can go with him. Even when you make good pitches he's got a chance to get a hit. That's not saying Goldschmidt isn't a good hitter too but I think what he's doing so well is he's not missing mistakes. When he gets a mistake, he kills it. And that's the tough part is trying to figure out what's going to happen there. If I knew he was going to hit a home run I wouldn't have walked him.
Surprised by struggles today?
No, I wasn't surprised. I knew these guys were going to come out and really give us a tough ball game. I knew we had trouble with Collmenter and I thought we'd be able to score some runs off him, but Corey got the one home run and that was it. I knew this was going to be a tough game.
Strange that IBBs have been key?
Yeah, I think that for both managers we don't like to do it and, how it's hurt both of us, yeah, I'm surprised it's come out like it has. Again, sometimes you think you make the right move and sometimes it doesn't work out, sometimes you have a gut feeling which is why sometimes I don't walk people when it's probably the right situation, and I think you depend on your pitcher who's out there and do you trust him to make good pitches when you pitch around people? Pitching around people is difficult. Everybody thinks it's easy to do but you get out there when you're the pitcher and you try to make a nasty pitch on a breaking ball and you spin it and it hangs right over the middle of the plate. It's not easy to pitch around guys.
On a ground ball that could have been a double play if Marcum hadn't bobbled it:
Yeah, he's a really good fielder and for him I'm surprised he didn't catch it cleanly. I'm not sure if we go to second if we come back and get a double play there or not. It'd be close, it wasn't hit that hard back at him, would've been an interesting play.
How important is tomorrow's game?
No, it's not a do or die game. We need to come out and play a solid game, but it's certainly not do or die.