Neil Walker on Arrieta, Cole, infield defense

Neil Walker addressed reporters during today’s clubhouse availability. Here are some of the highlights.

On Gerrit Cole:

"I like that nobody is talking about him. Let be honest, all we've heard all week is about their starter. We've got a prettty good one."

On Jake Arrieta:

"You've got to assume he's going to be as good as advertised. Having said that, we have to do a good job of taking advantage of situations. We have to be really smart about how we're going about our at-bats, knowing the situations and what he's trying to do. ... He's different with every guy. That's the one thing that makes him good — he doesn't have a ton of patterns. But you do know his best pitch is his slider/cutter. Knowing that, you kind of work off of that. There are some things I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

On adjusting to Arrieta vs. sticking with your approach: 

“The more you understand what you do best as an individual and then you kind of see how he’s pitched you over the past starts. You try to kind of take that information, put it all together and try to grab an approach from there.

”It usually doesn’t differ from a lot of pitchers. Guys tend to work away in certain situations and in[side] in certain situations. Their put-away pitches are typically breaking balls and curveballs or sliders. You try not to change too much to go against something you may do well.“

”You got a guy that’s four-pitch mix guy with four plus pitches. You have to be opportunistic when the time comes.“

On batters being able to adjust to different pitchers:

”For this level, to be successful and hang around here, that’s the one thing that you have to be good at is making adjustments on the fly, making adjustments pitch to pitch, at-bat to at-bat. If you’re not able to do that, you’re kind of weeded out. We know what we’re capable of doing individually and as a group. It’s just a matter of scoring those runs when you have an opportunity.“

On out-of-the-ordinary circumstances in the wild-card game:

”I think more from a pitching standpoint, these starters are not going to come out and pace themselves. They’re going to go as hard as they can and if for some reason something happens, you know you have all hands on deck in the bullpen.“

On how the defense will handle possibly cutting off a run vs. playing for an out:

”That kind of depends on who’s hitting, who’s running. … We expect a tight game tomorrow so we expect every run to be important. You get a situation in the first inning with a man on third and one out, I’m expecting probably both sides to be infield in.

“You understand who’s on the mound, is he a ground-ball guy, is he a fly-ball guy. Is the guy hitting a speed guy, what does he do well?”

On getting to Arrieta early:

“The guys at the top, they have to be stubborn with their approach. If they see he’s being a little erratic, not to get too aggressive in hitter’s counts. Maybe drop a bunt down here or there. You look at our team, we’ve got some guys that can really run at the top of the order. That’s important in every game for us. If we get guys on, we feel like we can wreak some havoc on the starting pitcher or at least make him think we’ll be on the run and on the move and maybe hit and run here and there. When you can get that mentality on the starting pitcher, you can get more fastballs as hitters.”

Arrieta said he is comfortable game-planning against the Pirates, does it go both ways?

“We understand what he’s going to do, we understand what makes him good, we understand where he likes to get his outs, what pitches he likes to use to get his outs, how he likes to get ahead.

”That’s where the stubborn approach kicks in. You know you’re going to get so few chances, you have to be ready when those come.“

Do you wonder how he reacts if he falls behind early?

”I do know that pitchers tend to settle in a little more when they feel like they are more comfortable, if they maybe get through the order with a lot of first pitch swings or a lot of first-pitch outs. That’s the hope, that you can put some runs on the board early and let your guy kind of settle in.“

What have you seen in Cole’s past four starts?

”His stuff has been similar all year. The thing he does well is he reads hitters well. He’s obviously got an upper 90s fastball that gets on guys and then he’s got a wipeout slider. He knows how he wants to attack guys. His control is typically very good to both sides of the plate and he knows how to put guys away.“