As seen on FS Wisconsin.
As usual, the first question was cut off:
Yeah, I think so, at least what I see. You'll see a lot of really good pitches and then...like Bruce, hanging curveball to Bruce. Fastball he got up to Cozart. Most of the pitches are up in the zone. He got hurt back-to-back on curveballs today, one was ok, Heisey hit a ball off the end of the bat that he flipped up the middle, but the one that Bruce hit he hit pretty good.
Is Fiers going to start again?
As far as I know, yeah.
Why was Fiers able to dominate some hitters but not others?
Right. That's why I think his stuff is still fine, it's just location. He's still getting behind in the count. Throws four innings and I look up there and he's at 88 pitches or something. Definitely not efficient with his pitches.
What do you think is wrong with him?
I don't know. I don't know if it's confidence, end of the year, I don't know. When you come out and see him throw some pitches you're like, 'all right.' He's got it. But he doesn't repeat it as much as he was doing earlier.
Are teams figuring him out?
I don't think so. I think if he still has the same life and location on his ball the deception's always going to be there.
On the difference in pennant race baseball:
There's a lot of things that go on this time of year that a guy that hasn't been through it...you always have those questions about what's going on. It's good for these guys, it's great experience for them.
On Johnny Cueto:
Yeah, the velocity wasn't as high as it usually is every pitch but when he needed it he had it, Movement of ball was great, and he mixed in the off speed pitch when he needed to. His slider was really nice and down in the zone. He's good. He can pitch.
On struggling to elevate the ball against Cueto:
Yeah, and I don't remember him necessarily being that much of a ground ball pitcher, at least against us. But we did, we hit a lot of ground balls. Like I said, it shows you that the ball was down in the zone a lot.
On the lack of scoring opportunities:
Rickie swung the bat great, killed a ball to center that went nowhere, and then the last ball off Chapman he killed. But we didn't have a lot of action going on.
On back-to-back losses.
Yeah it's not a good time to do it. But we knew coming in we were going to have to pitch really well to hold them down because we didn't think we were going to be able to score a lot of runs off Cueto. Scratched out a couple, but there's not many opportunities he gives you to string together a big inning.
On both bullpens:
Their bullpen, when you get to Broxton and Chapman right now that's not very ideal. We need to get to them early. Our bullpen did good. They came out and threw the ball well again.
On the playoff odds getting longer:
Well it's certainly looking a lot tougher. We're going to have to get some big time help.