Will Smith on Yamamoto’s Complete Game and His Playoff Home Run

Will, you had the best view of what Yamamoto was doing tonight.

How masterful was it for him to navigate to pitch to a complete game again?

Yeah, that was special.

He had his pitches going, he was locating the ball well.

Just mixing speeds, keeping them really off balance.

That's what we needed.

We needed a great start out of somebody.

Yoshi stepped up today and he gave it to us.

The Jays have shown you their swinging early in the count.

How did you guys navigate through that the first couple of innings and

that long first inning for him to be so efficient after that?

Yeah, that was huge to get out of that with no runs.

That's kind of a momentum swing for us, so we needed that.

But yeah, just mixing, just doing what Yoshi does.

You're tied, I think, for the team lead in hits.

You lead the team in batting average in the postseason, but

the home run was your first extra base hit.

Is that a product of the hand just coming along and-

I hope so, sure.

But that's me, I'm just trying not to do too much, trying to move the ball,

help this offense score runs.

You drive the ball great, but just hitting line drives everywhere.

You really had the two big hits that really got things going today.

And you talked a little bit about trying to stay within yourself before the game.

You talked about that.

Is that what you're doing in those situations?

Just- Yeah, yeah, for sure.

You can let the emotions get the best of you, try to hit a homer every time or

be the hero every time, and it doesn't work out.

So I'm just trying to simplify, put together a good at-bat swing at the right

pitch, and move forward.

How did Gossman do when that stretch there?

He played 17 in a row.

Yeah, he was pitching really well.

He was really locating the fastball at the bottom, the split was on.

He threw a few sliders, maybe not as many as he thought, but

he was just mixing his fastball and splitter.

And that was tough at bats.

He was pitching really well.

So what did you see in your batting of the home run?

Yeah, I mean, he threw me all heaters.

I got ahead of one, then kind of nibbled to be able to get back in the count.

Yeah, get a mistake up and be able to keep it fair.

You don't really show a lot of emotion on the field, but

after you hit your home run, you did look into the dugout and

showed a lot more than we've seen.

Was that just the urgency of needing to win this game?

Yeah, yeah, it's a big swing, obviously.

The emotions are running high, but also trying to get the guys going.

Visky was in there right before the inning getting us going, so

just trying to keep that momentum going for us.