NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ASTROS v CARDINALS

October 15, 2005

Phil Garner

PHIL GARNER: Yes.

PHIL GARNER: Biggio, Burke is in centerfield batting second, Berkman, Ensberg, Lamb is playing first base, Jason Lane, Ausmus and Everett. And of course this guy, some guy is pitching tonight.

PHIL GARNER: Well, I think Chris is swinging the bat pretty good right now and he has through these playoff games. Go with a little bit of a hot hand. This is only a move to do today, I haven't even thought to tomorrow. I called Willy in, he's a little bit disappointed and justifiably so but he'll be prepared to pinch run, pinch-hit or come in for a switch at some point in the game. Chris is swinging the bat well and I wanted to get Lamb in the game, he's swinging the bat well, too. There's a lot of different combinations but I feel pretty good about this one.

PHIL GARNER: Well, he's played well defensively, no question. I don't feel like it hurts us defensively. I have felt comfortable with Chris playing in centerfield. I put Chris out there when Willy had stitches in his finger there right toward the end of the season. There have been a couple of defensive switches that I had made, double-switches rather, that I had made and put Chris out there. So he has not played it a lot but I feel comfortable with it and I think he'll do a fine job out there.

PHIL GARNER: That's one of the considerations.

PHIL GARNER: I don't know. I haven't asked him that. But going back into spring training, we worked with him quite a bit in spring training, we did a lot of extra work with him, Jose Cruz, with Cecil Cooper, a lot of groundballs, a lot of fly balls, and a lot of extra work. I felt from day one watching him do those things, he seemed to track the ball well and he seemed to have pretty good moves. Here and there he'd do a little backpedal every now and then which is one of my pet peeves, no back pedaling allowed, but he seemed to track the ball well. And he's had good instincts, he's thrown the ball to the right bases. He's made some pretty good plays. So I don't know what his toughest part of the transition has been. He's thrown the ball well and you would think for a guy who has been playing second base for the last couple of years, that might be a difficult thing for him. But he's thrown the ball very well, and he's made good plays. So we've been very pleased with what he's done.

PHIL GARNER: No, Backe is going to go tomorrow. And that's not because of Pettitte's bruise. That's the way it would have been whether Pettitte would have been hit or not. Pettitte is fine, by the way.

PHIL GARNER: Well, I think it can be. We can draw on what we've had to go through. One of the things that you say is, you know, there's a lot of nervous excitement and anxiety. I think the first time that it happened to me when I was in the playoffs with the Oakland A's, you know, it's almost like you're flawed. Am I supposed to feel this nervous and scared, you know, and then you realize that everybody goes through that and the real key is you learn how to channel it. I think having that sort of confidence that can flow from the experienced players to the guys who are inexperienced, and say, no, just live with it, because that's what makes you stronger and faster and better and more alert than you ever are as that fight-or-flight thing that happens to you when you get in these situations. It's an exciting time and when you have had guys that have been through it and know what it's all about, I think it helps these guys who haven't been there.

PHIL GARNER: Well, I don't know. I'm going to say it's our fans. That's the best guess I can come up with. And I don't say that lightly, you know, and to blow smoke in the direction of our fans. But truth of the matter is, it seemed to start happening last year when we got on a roll last year, this place was rocking, and it's been that way this year, too. I think that there's definitely an energy involved when it starts to roll in here and you can't hear anything, and it just gets deafening. I think we feed off of it. That seems to be the way we've operated. So that's as good of an explanation as I can give.

PHIL GARNER: Well, this is the loudest I've ever been in, you know, Minnesota, even Milwaukee when we were in Milwaukee, we didn't have great teams, but in 1992 when we were making a run for the pennant and we went into the Metrodome, there were some great ballgames and it was loud and it was a lot of fun. We had some of those crazy games where Kirby Puckett was playing second and left and moving around for different batters and fans were going crazy over that. It was wild, it was wild. But I've never seen anything like what's here.

PHIL GARNER: Well, I'm hoping that that's going to help a great deal. Obviously you still have to perform but I think what he did last year against the Cardinals here in Game 5, particularly our backs against the wall, he pitched very, very well, and some of the most tense situations that you can ever be in. And he can go back and say, this is the way I did it, I don't have to fool anybody and I can trust my stuff. When you do that under the watchful eye of everybody in the country and other countries, that gives you a certain sense of confidence. As we were talking about earlier, just the experience of having been here and dealing with these anxieties and pressures, the experience does help a little bit.

PHIL GARNER: Well, first and foremost, I didn't necessarily think it was a big loss. One of my things that I feel is, if you put so much of your capital in any one player, it's going to hurt you in my opinion. So I think it might have been a little bit of a blessing. I don't think it's a good idea put in a whole lot of money. So I applaud our owner for going the extra mile and trying to make that happen, but I think it probably was a blessing in disguise. We all thought -- well, let me put it this way. Our Minor League people who had watched Willy Taveras play were confident that he could come up here and play defensively. They did not know exactly what he would do offensively, but they knew he was defensively capable. So they proved out to be right about that, so we all felt like that, hey, we'll play Willy for a little while and we'll get Berkman back and if Willy struggles, we'll make a move from there and as it turned out, he didn't struggle and he played very, very well. When we got Berkman back, we started clicking a little bit offensively and he continued to do his portion offensively and we all pitched in as a team and helped out. So we didn't miss a beat. Now that's not to say that Carlos Beltran is not a great player; he is, and he brings a lot to your ballclub; speed, defense, power and a terrific player. But I don't think our club has suffered. I think we have actually perhaps have become a better ballclub because of it.