Hey, everybody. Not the greatest day for us today.

Really, it wasn’t much different than any other day other than the fact we had to get out there on the foul line for early introductions. That was pretty cool, even though the pregame routine was messed up a little bit. There was a little more intensity, a little more enthusiasm from the crowd.

I suppose that’s how you should approach it. It’s a bigger stage, obviously, but it’s nice to feel comfortable, like it’s just another game in the regular season. The circumstances are bigger and I think we all understand what’s at stake, but, really, it didn’t feel too much different.

The game itself? Frustrating. Cole Hamels threw the ball extremely well and the umpire gave him a lot of borderline pitches, which caused us to swing at a lot of pitches we probably shouldn’t have swung at. Still, he pitched great, he’s one of the better pitchers in the league and he deserves a lot of credit.

We’ve got CC Sabathia in Game 2. Any time we have CC pitching, we’re in great shape. We’re confident going into Thursday’s game and I feel like we have some momentum from at least scoring a run in the ninth inning and getting into position to tie that game. It was the first playoff game for a lot of us, so getting those jitters out is definitely a good thing.

This is nothing new for us, either. We have dealt with so much adversity. We struggled at times through September and we’ve dealt with a lot. By no means is this the position we want to be in — you want to win Game 1 — but we’re not afraid to have to respond to adversity or a tough loss. It’s fitting, I suppose, to do it this way.