Wild-card media day: Petrina McCutchen to sing national anthem

Petrina McCutchen, Andrew’s mom, will sing the national anthem for Wednesday’s wild-card game. Bob Walk will throw out the first pitch and Jung Ho Kang will be in the house for pre-game introductions.

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Jake Arrieta and Gerrit Cole had similar thoughts during their press conferences today. Arrieta: “It’s going to come down to who makes the fewest amount of mistakes, on the mound, in the field and on the bases.

Cole: ”A lot of luck involved, you know, but there's a lot of little details that matter. And the team that takes care of those the best comes out on top usually.“

Cole had a very diplomatic answer when asked about Pedro Alvarez’s defense and if it affected him: ”Well, I mean, I like to be pretty athletic off the mound in terms of taking care of my job, which is covering first base, fielding bunts in certain situations, fielding slow rollers to the first base and having to communicate and direct traffic. So there is no game plan. I think Pedro does a fine job over there, and I love having him in the lineup. He tends to hit a lot of home runs when I pitch.“

Clint Hurdle didn’t offer much one way or the other when asked how he weights Alvarez’s defensive issues with the power he provides. ”You drill down to the facts,“ Hurdle said. ” ... It comes down to strengths vs. challenges.“

Cole was excited about facing Arrieta, the same way he was excited for Game 5 of the 2013 NLDS against Adam Wainwright.

”I feel like when you're in these situations you want to face the best,“ Cole said. ”You want to get the best measure and best temperature of the other team because you really want to earn these wins. You work so hard to put yourself in position to have these opportunities, and it doesn't feel any better than going up against the best. On the flip side, I think you can sit here and say he's probably going to go pretty deep and he's probably going to go pretty low. So you're probably going to have to go pretty deep and you're probably going to have to go pretty low too. So you know what you're going to get.“

Said Cole of pitching at home in a wild-card environment: ”t can rattle some people. That's no joke. I think we saw that a couple years ago.“

He was referring to Johnny Cueto, who dropped the ball on the mound as the crowd chanted his name before allowing a home run to Russell Martin.

”Tremendous competitor, really young guy who is pitching beyond his years,“ Arrieta said of Cole. ”I watched him when he was at UCLA and knew that he was going to be a really good one. I knew that it wasn't going to take very long. We've seen him against us a couple times this year, I think. He's been really good. He features plus stuff. Everything he throws is plus.“