Rhett Lowder on Quality Start, Reds Win Over Athletics

Yeah, honestly, I mean, credit to Butler on that. I thought I executed it. It was a little bit more over the plate than I thought. Me and Trev, we both thought it was wide open, and he just made a good swing, and then Wilson just kind of jumped us there, too, and luckily that stayed in the yard, but I felt like I wasn't making bad pitches. They were kind of awesome stuff we didn't think they'd be, so I didn't really change much. I kind of was just like, all right, well, they're not going to keep doing that all game, and I felt like I was executing pretty good. After what you went through earlier this season, how do you feel you're pitching right now? Yeah, I feel like I'm throwing it pretty good. I kind of had a flippant mindset a little bit. You know, it's been up and down. I've had some good starts. I've had some really bad ones, and when you're kind of not really helping the team win, you want to try to be perfect every time you go out there, and I kind of just had to be like, you're not going to climb out of the hole you dug yourself in earlier by just being perfect, even in that it puts so much more pressure on yourself, so I'm just trying to go out there and just have quality innings, quality at-bats, make quality pitches, and then just see where you're at at the end of the game. A lot of you kind of dug yourself into a hole as well, but coming out of the All-Star break, how does the team feel, even though the chances don't look great, to keep plugging along these last few months? Yeah, I mean, I think we're playing really free. You've seen us kind of have a couple comeback wins, and we think we're going to win every game, which is probably the most important thing for our team, where I gave up the lead in the last inning, and really no one was worried about that, and we kind of just added on right after, and that's the kind of mentality you have to have as a good team, that when you're playing well, you don't worry about giving up a run or striking out or having a bad inning. You know you're pretty confident. You've got time left in the game. How significant is the rep? Yeah. How important is that? Yeah, I think we've done a pretty good job of that all year. We've been through a lot. Guys have been on the IOL. I've been on the IOL. Guys coming back, I've played multiple roles, and I think everyone's had each other's back the entire way, and I don't see that changing now. We know whoever takes the ball has got to go out there and do their job, and I think we've been doing better at keeping, you know, the bullpen's gone through it all year and trying to keep those guys where they can go out. We can run our best guys on rest, as like you've seen the past, I don't know, since All-Star break, really. Like, they've been doing a great job, and if we can continue to keep them rested, I think we'll be in a good spot.