AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES v ANGELS

October 5, 2005

Joe Torre

JOE TORRE: I think the couple of balls were unusual. Even the bunts were chopped way up in the air. But you're right, they are usually going to hit the ball into the ground and you're going to have to live with the consequences. We gave a couple of extra outs and we paid the price for it. But you have two teams playing hard, and, you know, we start over again on Friday.

JOE TORRE: I can't say disappointing. If they happen, people not paying attention, then, yeah, it bothers you. These guys are playing hard, and as I said, both clubs are. You just have to live with the results of it, that's all. I thought when Robby made on error earlier, Wang bailed him out by getting the next hitter out. You know, it was very tightly-played ballgame. As I say, you can't give a club, especially a club like the Angels, where they can just keep putting the ball in play and do some things. But again, I thought Wang pitched very well. He made a couple of pitches and mislocated them. The one to Cabrera, he was just trying to get it down and he hung it up high, and that was the difference in the ballgame for him.

JOE TORRE: He was complaining that when Leiter was called in, he threw a couple of three pitches, that hurry-up, the game stuff. So when the pitcher gets called into a game, he's not allowed to do that. So he was going to penalize him on the mound. So they are just following the rules, you know, as far as how many pitches he can throw coming in.

JOE TORRE: Well, we were hoping we could get more done out here. We were in a position, we had a lead. Again, there's no lead that's safe, especially when you're dealing against a ballclub like the Angels. We're pleased going home. It's said if you win one of these two, it's great, but I hate as a manager to think that way. But going home, you're right, we can do it at home, we can put another load on Randy on Friday. And if he comes up big for us, and we play well behind him and score him some runs, then we have a chance to close it out there. We feel good about ourselves. These guys have been bouncing back, especially over the last three or four weeks. The one thing we've been doing is something bad happens, you keep fighting your way through it. We're ready to play and, you know, hopefully we have a good result.