NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 5, 2005

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: It was command, yeah. He was way off his game early. Got it back in around the fifth or sixth inning, he threw pretty darn good. He was just too fired up, I think. He was really wanting to really pitch a shutout tonight, I think. He just got the ball out of the strike zone. Too many balls.

BOBBY COX: Well, we need to win one here, that's for sure. I mean, it's pretty easy to shake off. We've got Smoltzie going tomorrow. We scored five runs and played a real good game today. Defensively I thought we played great. We scored enough runs to win; that's what hurts.

BOBBY COX: Good. You know, looking at his past starts, you know, he very seldom gives up over three runs. A couple times during the course of the year he did. But not lately. So to get four off of him was pretty darn good.

BOBBY COX: Actually didn't struggle. In the eighth inning Reitsma couldn't have made any better pitches. He just got blooped to death. The eighth inning is what killed us. It was actually a game, 5-3. There wasn't a ball hit hard that entire inning. You know, you've got to give them credit. With two strikes they put the ball in play. That's where I give them credit, that's for sure. But he's not going to throw the ball any better than he did tonight.

BOBBY COX: I still consider Berkman one of the top guys on their team and in the league, especially hitting left-handed. Ensberg hadn't hurt us much, no. But we made some bad pitches. The first one was in on him a little bit, semi-line drive to center. The other ones were two groundballs between third and short. The last one was a bases-loaded walk.