Dylan Smith shares ninth-inning mindset after save in Giants' win vs. Guardians
San Francisco reliever Dylan Smith stops into "Giants Postgame Live" after a 1-0 win over the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday at Progressive Field.
Dylan Smith shares ninth-inning mindset after save in Giants' win vs. Guardians originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
The giants get a nail-biting win at Progressive Field.
The Tugboat, lefty Matt "Tugboat" Wilkinson made his big league debut and it was smooth sailing as he tossed two scoreless innings to start out this game.
But then Dylan Smith got the six-out save, coming through in the clutch to finish it.
The final out against the former Giant, Patrick Bailey.
The script writers absolutely in their bag for this one.
The Giants even the series with the one to nothing victory.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Toyota Giants Post Game Live.
Thrilled to have you here.
Alongside the former All-Star shortstop, Rich Aurilia, I'm Kylen Mills.
The Giants win one-nothing, just their second one-nothing win of the season.
And this was all about the pitching staff; from start to finish, every single person looked sharp.
Yeah, nail-biter today.
One-nothing game.
Yeah.
Not a lot of offense on either side, but- Nope again, it comes back to the pitching.
You start out with Tugboat, then Hauser comes in, does a, does a great job, and then we close it out with Dylan Smith, a six-out save.
We don't see those very often anymore.
No.
You also don't see very often where you're facing someone who was on your team to start the season in Patrick Bailey, you gotta get the final out against.
Which truly was, the scriptwriters in their bag.
As we welcome in now Dylan Smith, who joins us live from Cleveland after getting his third save of the year.
Dylan, congratulations.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Great to see you.
I wanna start with the final out.
You're going up against your former teammate in Patrick Bailey.
What's your approach?
What's your mindset as you're trying to get that final, what ended up being a K?
Yeah, so my, my biggest thing is just attack him.
You know, go out there, pitch at a time, and just go out there and dominate the zone.
Hey, Dylan, Rich Aurilia here.
Great job tonight.
Seemed like af- you came in that eighth inning, struck out the side, seemed like there was a, a really good dose of adrenaline.
You come back in the ninth, you had a feel for that fastball tonight up in the zone.
Is that what you were relying on the whole, the whole time you were in there?
Yeah, you know, you know, it worked for me in the first inning and when I came in in the eighth, and so I just kept with it.
You know, you don't go away from something that's working.
So I just kept building on it in the ninth inning and just rolled with that pitch.
Dylan, we just mentioned this was your third save of the year.
You've gotten some more opportunities in kind of a closer role, though I know it's not been formally named.
We've talked on our show about how different it is to pitch in that ninth inning compared to the first eight.
What is the mindset that you try to bring when you are called into action in those situations?
You know, for me, you just stay calm in that moment and just be poised.
You know, go out there and control what you can control.
I can just go out there and throw strikes, and that's what I can control.
Dylan, how, how was the atmosphere tonight?
You know, I mean, you got a young kid coming up, making his major league debut.
You know, was there any extra kind of energy or whatever in the clubhouse today before this game started?
Yeah, you know, it's, it's always good when you got someone coming out there for their major league debut.
You know, you always wanna get a win for the kid, you know.
So just going out there and playing for him to get him his first W. Well, Smith, we appreciate you.
Dylan, we appreciate you joining us.
Five K's in that six-out save.
Outstanding stuff.
Thank you.
