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NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS VS METS

October 12, 2015

Don Mattingly

Flushing, New York - Postgame three

THE MODERATOR: First question for Don.

Q. Did Anderson ever look comfortable out there to you?
DON MATTINGLY: I thought he looked good the first inning. Ball was coming out of his hand pretty good early. Obviously the second was not as good; threw the ball up more. And the third, you were kind of just hoping there that he has a chance to kind of find a groove and give you some innings right through there, but obviously it kind of ended. We couldn't get out of that inning.

Q. Was Utley an option to pinch-hit in the ninth?
DON MATTINGLY: Sure.

Q. Is there any reason you went righty-righty with Ruggiano?
DON MATTINGLY: My only issue is I gotta get through Grandal, who kind of pinched something there his last at-bat. And I'm still down six, so I really don't want to hit with one guy on, I want to try to get three or four guys on for him. So yeah, he's available.

Q. When you see the back-to-back of Anderson and Wood, the struggles they've had down the stretch, how symptomatic do you think that is of just where the pitching staff has been for you over the last five, six weeks of the season?
DON MATTINGLY: Those guys have been okay. They've been okay. You know, yeah, they've been fine. Actually, Wood is throwing the ball pretty good for us. Brett has thrown the ball good for the most part. No, they've been fine.

Q. You had Harvey on the ropes a little bit, up 3-0. What changed that he was able to shut you down a little bit after that?
DON MATTINGLY: Well, it kind of really felt like we did a pretty good job with him. You know, we get that liner, Howie lines out there. David makes a nice play on him and that gets us up four early. And really I think he throws 96, 97 through five. We got him on the ropes a couple of different times, we just don't get the hit. So I thought we did a pretty good job really of giving ourselves chances right there, and we just weren't able to get the hit.

Q. Terry said you guys had a meeting with Manfred before the game. How did that go and what was the context of that?
DON MATTINGLY: It was fine. It was just talking about the day, and some of the things I alluded to earlier that, you know, this is our national stage and that we want to represent our game and we want to play baseball. I really think, you know, that's the way I feel. I think that's the way Terry feels. I know, you know, you always hear the chatter, but I think in general you want to represent the game the right way.

Q. Tomorrow with the season on the line, what's your level of confidence with Clayton on three days' rest?
DON MATTINGLY: Pretty good. He's been pretty good with three days' rest. Atlanta game he was good two years ago. We make an error, he gets some unearned runs. St. Louis game I think he's scoreless through six. We should have had the first two outs of that inning in the seventh. We don't get either one of them and then he hangs a breaking ball to Adams. His stuff's really been fine.

So I feel good with him. His stuff's always good. So yeah, I'm always pretty confident when he's pitching.

Q. What was your perception on the way that Chase was given his ovation tonight?
DON MATTINGLY: It was fine.

Q. Just you've been in this situation so many times. To be in a Game 3 on the road and be up three runs, is this the type of game you think you might look back on as, you know, where this season didn't go as planned when you think it through?
DON MATTINGLY: Well, three in the second, you're not exactly feeling like the game's over. If it's three in the seventh or something, you look at it differently, but that didn't last very long. You know, we're down one after that. The way I looked at it where it's a 1-0, you know, through two. So you kind of just move forward, you're down 1-0 and then we gotta try to keep it going from there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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