Speaker 1: Join right now by the busiest man at camel Back Ranch,
Speaker 1: and that is Dodger pitching coach Mark Pryor.
Speaker 2: Mark, thanks a lot for the time, No problem anytime.
Speaker 1: Let's just get everything out of the way that we
Speaker 1: need to get out of the way. Blake's now, go ahead,
Speaker 1: you geld roast me for that if you want, and
Speaker 1: then we'll get on.
Speaker 2: We'll move on with the interview.
Speaker 3: Bike Bike's Bike's been great. Uh, he's been He's been
Speaker 3: enjoyed to having camp and it's nice to have him
Speaker 3: on our side. Finally, all right.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's been burning in my skull the
Speaker 1: entire offseason was getting your first hand account of Walker
Speaker 1: Buehler going out to the bullpen kind of on his
Speaker 1: own and then coming in in Game five of the
Speaker 1: World Series to close it out. Can you take us
Speaker 1: through those events?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I can take it through. I mean
Speaker 3: I can confirm, I can confirm what he said on
Speaker 3: some other platforms is pretty much true. I was unaware
Speaker 3: of a lot of those conversations that had happened throughout
Speaker 3: the Horse of the day and right around the fourth
Speaker 3: fish maybe fifth inning, I got a tap on the
Speaker 3: shoulder saying hey, Walker's walking down to the bullpen. And
Speaker 3: I was kind of like okay and called him and
Speaker 3: called down and said what are you doing? And he
Speaker 3: kind of said, hey, well, you know they told me
Speaker 3: if it got you know, if I got squirrelier sideways,
Speaker 3: and I said, okay, I'll call you later. And and
Speaker 3: then obviously it got you know, got crazy, and uh
Speaker 3: called down again and said where are you at? And
Speaker 3: he's like, I'll let you know here in a minute,
Speaker 3: which for me was code of yeah, okay, he has
Speaker 3: no idea.
Speaker 2: He hasn't thrown.
Speaker 3: Yet, so knew where he was at. I mean I
Speaker 3: knew that, you know, if he was down there, he
Speaker 3: could pitch obviously, to to what extent. You know, those
Speaker 3: are always the you know, those questions of like is
Speaker 3: it is it ten pitches? Can he go twenty pitches?
Speaker 3: You know, you don't know. Fortunately we didn't need that many,
Speaker 3: so uh uh but he was yeah, so all, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's what it is. It was all true, like he
Speaker 3: had conversations. That's what Walker does, and you know, worked
Speaker 3: out well for everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm just curious from your standpoint. You're the pitching coach.
Speaker 1: You're not privy to whatever he told Andrew and Gomes
Speaker 1: on the bus, you hang up the phone to the
Speaker 1: bullpen after talking to him. What's going through your mind
Speaker 1: at that point in time in the game, do you
Speaker 1: what did you tell Dave Roberts just because of where
Speaker 1: the game was at after Jack didn't go very deep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I basically told Doc like, he's you know,
Speaker 3: he's down there. He says he's available to pitch, and
Speaker 3: you know, I think we all were under the assumption
Speaker 3: it was probably you know, one, you know, he had
Speaker 3: one shot basically, whether that was one clean inning or
Speaker 3: to start the ending clean or if we had to
Speaker 3: bring him in the middle of an inning. I wasn't
Speaker 3: gonna be a situation where he sat back down and
Speaker 3: probably went back out. So we just had to kind
Speaker 3: of see where we're at, and you know, Blake is
Speaker 3: what Blake did got us to the point where we
Speaker 3: can use him in that situation. I think if if
Speaker 3: Blake doesn't get as deep as he did, you know,
Speaker 3: then we're making a decision on reusing you know, Walker
Speaker 3: potentially in the eighth and then you know, we're pretty
Speaker 3: short at that point, so I'm not really sure what
Speaker 3: we were going to do in the ninth. So I
Speaker 3: think a lot of the credit for Walker even pitching
Speaker 3: that game really goes to to Blake trying and and
Speaker 3: being able to get us get us through the eighth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I've mentioned this
Speaker 1: to Dave a few times. I'm a firm believer that
Speaker 1: one of the great moments of that World Series run
Speaker 1: was Dave going out there without having his mind made
Speaker 1: up on whether he was going to take Trinon out
Speaker 1: of that game at that point in time. What did
Speaker 1: you think when Dave left the dugout and went out
Speaker 1: there to just check the temperature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's
Speaker 3: not an easy decision for a manager, any manager, And honestly,
Speaker 3: in you know, some of those decisions are easier than
Speaker 3: others when it's June second, you know, on a Tuesday night,
Speaker 3: but you know, in playoff baseball, they're not easy decisions.
Speaker 3: You're making a decision on what you're looking at, how
Speaker 3: he's been throwing the baseball, knowing your bullpen is down
Speaker 3: there with the guys who are on fumes, especially that
Speaker 3: late in October. But you know, Ben and obviously just
Speaker 3: pitched Landon probably wasn't in a position to pitch. You
Speaker 3: have Walker who had pitched two days before that, so
Speaker 3: you're dealing with a fatigued groups. You don't know what's
Speaker 3: coming out of that bullpen, and you know, I've never
Speaker 3: been in that situation as a manager, but you're going
Speaker 3: out there to figure out is the guy on the mound,
Speaker 3: you know, does he still have enough you know, energy
Speaker 3: and enough fuel in the tank to be able to
Speaker 3: compete at a high level.
Speaker 2: Mark Pryor, Dodgers pitching coach, he is our guest.
Speaker 1: The bullpen unprecedented, the way they kind of carriede you
Speaker 1: guys through with limited amount of starters. What's it like
Speaker 1: in spring training now? The residual effect of pitching longer
Speaker 1: and deeper than they ever have before and being leaned upon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean they're all those are all
Speaker 3: real things, you know. I think that's why there's always
Speaker 3: a uh, I guess, a championship hangover in all sports.
Speaker 3: You know, you're playing longer, guys are banged up when
Speaker 3: you're trying to win the thing. You know, we got
Speaker 3: some guys obviously that are still kind of nursing back
Speaker 3: from some of their injuries, you're trying to manage a
Speaker 3: little bit of rest and then a short offseason, even
Speaker 3: shorter going to Japan. You know, I think our guys
Speaker 3: are in a good spot, you know right now. You know,
Speaker 3: we've got them going, you know, at a normal pace.
Speaker 3: I think we'll monitor kind of their worklad through spring
Speaker 3: training and through maybe the first week or two of
Speaker 3: the season. But they're all extremely professional. They know what
Speaker 3: they you know, they know what they're at, you know,
Speaker 3: they know how to prepare. But what they did last
Speaker 3: year was again, it was unprecedented, and we knew we
Speaker 3: needed some we needed performances like that from individuals and
Speaker 3: then the staff collectively to put us in a position
Speaker 3: to strike. And we knew we were gonna take some
Speaker 3: take some lumps along the way, and fortunately we had
Speaker 3: some guys step up in those games that allowed us
Speaker 3: to do what we needed to do with our bullpenper.
Speaker 2: Strike hard strike first.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mark Pryor, Dodgers pitching coach, is our guest show.
Speaker 2: Heyo Tani.
Speaker 1: Mark is starting to experiment with pitching out of the
Speaker 1: wind up.
Speaker 2: Where did that all come from?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's something that he was looking to do,
Speaker 3: and like you said, I think he's mentioned he's always
Speaker 3: trying to get better and do some things, and he
Speaker 3: wanted to feel some energy. Wasn't something that you know necessarily,
Speaker 3: you know, I brought to the table something that he did,
Speaker 3: and I like it. I mean, I always like guys
Speaker 3: and deliveries. Sometimes you move guys to stretch only to
Speaker 3: simplify things, but I like when guys have some athleticism
Speaker 3: and some rhythm in their delivery. I think it helps
Speaker 3: her timing, and so I think that's what he's messing
Speaker 3: around with right now.
Speaker 1: Do you believe part of the equation is to try
Speaker 1: to take some stress off the elbow or the arm.
Speaker 3: I think it can help with guys is sequencing and
Speaker 3: timing that ultimately will take some, hopefully some stress off
Speaker 3: an arm. To say that pitching out the wind up
Speaker 3: is less stressful than pitching out the stretches, No, but
Speaker 3: it's it's again, it's all about getting into certain positions
Speaker 3: for that individual. Some guys do it better with the
Speaker 3: help of the wind up and the timing. Some guys don't.
Speaker 3: So it's you know, it's unique to that person. But again,
Speaker 3: I think for him right now, you know, trying to
Speaker 3: get a little bit more rhythm in than diming, and
Speaker 3: so it's not so choppy, so to speak, and make
Speaker 3: sure he's not in kind of rehab mode and he's
Speaker 3: in more of like I'm getting ready to pitch and
Speaker 3: compete in games.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for the time, Mark, congratulations on being
Speaker 1: a two time World Series champion as the Dodgers pitching coach.
Speaker 1: And we look forward to what this staff has to
Speaker 1: bring for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be another fun year and we're all
Speaker 3: looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: All right, the rest of your lab crew is waiting
Speaker 1: for you, so I'll let you go. Thanks a lot
Speaker 1: for the time, No problem, Thank you,