NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ASTROS v CARDINALS

October 13, 2005

Phil Garner

PHIL GARNER: Well, I didn't have Gallo up to pitch to Edmonds, that's the first thing. I wasn't bringing him in to pitch to Edmonds. I thought Roy was throwing the ball real well and if he got into any more trouble I had Gallo for later. I thought Roy was plenty good enough to get out of the 7th inning so I stayed with him.

PHIL GARNER: Well, he did another nice job tonight. Know, he came through with a couple of big hits for us, a big triple that put us on the board and broke the ice a little bit and then drove in a big run for us late in the ballgame. He did another nice job. It's great to see him do that.

PHIL GARNER: Oh, I'm just trying to get through tonight. We'll think about that a little bit later. Right now I don't know what I'll do on Saturday.

PHIL GARNER: What you saw tonight is not unusual for Roy to have that kind of game, and of course this is the big stage, and it's about as big as they get and you know how much trouble we've had winning ball games in this ballpark. Boy, he stepped up large for us tonight and just took control of the ballgame, just absolutely dominated the game. And we were fortunate to have Brad Lidge that was ready to go for a couple innings, too. Roy could probably have pitched another inning but Brad was okay to go. Roy did a super job for us.

PHIL GARNER: No.

PHIL GARNER: Yes, we have the lead, a little bigger ballpark here, a little different circumstances. If you're trying to compare what we had against Atlanta at our ballpark in Houston, different circumstances.

PHIL GARNER: I will do it when I have an opportunity. When he's well-rested and he's feeling good and the circumstances present themselves, I'll do that. He was in good shape and felt good tonight and threw the ball good. I felt comfortable with him going two innings tonight.

PHIL GARNER: Well, as everybody can see, he's got an electric fastball, he's got a good slider. He has a very good curveball and his location tonight was excellent. You know, he threw some pitches that didn't go our way that were certainly close enough in my opinion, but I thought he threw a brilliant ballgame tonight, great location. The Cardinals, they are a great-hitting ballclub as evidenced by their season and the number of games they have won. There's a lot of offense on that ballclub and he just shut them down tonight.

PHIL GARNER: Well, I guess somebody brought up today, if you don't win today's game, it's probably over. Wasn't that the stats, that if you're the team that loses, or loses the first two, loses in the last seven or eight years or something like that? As I said before, our club is unusual. You don't know, you don't know things that might knock other teams down haven't seemed to do that to us. We played games like yesterday and then come back and play great games tonight.

PHIL GARNER: No, that's not typical of Roy. I didn't notice the first time. The second time I saw a little fist pump and that's about the most you'll ever get out of Roy.

PHIL GARNER: Well, he pitches well. And yes, he's dominated a few people in the last couple of years. He's been a very good closer. Tonight is typical of what he can do. You'll see him when he throws -- usually the only time he gets into trouble is when he doesn't throw strikes. When he throws strikes, he's not going to get beat around too much and that's what he's been doing for the last half of the season last year and what he's done all season this year.

PHIL GARNER: I think that was a key moment. He had a lot of momentum going. He had a good tempo, good pace of the ballgame. He makes a mistake to Pujols and he just hammers it. I thought at that moment, that could be a point in the ballgame where it may go either way. But I like the way Roy's attitude was, he just came right back at him, threw strikes and just went right through the order. That was key. I thought his mental -- his mental discipline right there was excellent, and I think that's why he was able to keep them shut down in the ballgame.

PHIL GARNER: Yeah, they were getting some close pitches in there. I'm saying it looked -- I can't tell where the pitches are, but where Brad catches the ball, they are pretty close. So what I'm saying about, the question was, why is Roy so good? The reason is, he's that good throwing the ball that hard with that good location. He can be on the plate, just off the plate.

PHIL GARNER: Yes.

PHIL GARNER: What he's saying, for those that can't hear that, yeah, it might rattle some pitchers at some key points in the ballgame and it didn't rattle Roy. I thought tonight he was as composed as I've ever seen him. He was locked in and threw the ball extremely well.

PHIL GARNER: It could have been. It's how we scored our first run. It might have stalled us in the first inning. If we don't put that run on, you don't know how the game ends up turning around. But we had a guy in motion and the ball glanced off his glove, and so we scored the run.