MLB WORLD SERIES: CARDINALS v RED SOX

October 27, 2004

Woody Williams

WOODY WILLIAMS: I think you just hit the nail right on the head. Bottom line is we're not playing the way we played all season, even in the playoffs we had our back against the wall in the NLCS and came back and played the way we're capable of doing. To me that's the frustrating thing. We're not pitching; we're not running the bases and not driving in the runs in a timely fashion. But you can't take things away from the Red Sox. They're playing very good and determined. The bottom line is we have to go out tonight and win. We have to win tonight and see what happens.

WOODY WILLIAMS: There's not much good to take out of that one. It wasn't the way I wanted to go out and get our team started out. So I know there's a lot I need to improve on, but like the start I had against Houston, I know what I did wrong and the way I pitched is not my strengths, and it's not the way I'm able and capable of pitching. So I just need to go out there and do my thing and see what happens.

WOODY WILLIAMS: I can imagine what they're going through, what they're feeling, the way we played all season, we gave them a lot of excitement. And we finally get to the World Series and we're down 3-0. And I know they're very intelligent baseball fans and they see how we're playing. I know that must be disgusting for them. All I can say to them is we're going to go out the best we can, and try and compete and make this thing -- keep continuing out further and further. But to speak about the start that may or may not happen, I'm hoping it will happen. I believe if we play the way we're capable of playing, it will happen. And we haven't done that yet. We've been sloppy and we've given a lot of stuff away right now, we're not clicking, so to speak.

WOODY WILLIAMS: I hate to say we got overwhelmed by anything or like it's passing us by, because it's such a great opportunity and a dream for all of us to get to this point in our career. This is the reason we play. We just haven't played the way we're capable of playing, and the Red Sox are playing better than us. We have to see if we can make tomorrow meaningful.

WOODY WILLIAMS: What's impressed me most is the way they play the game. They play a lot like we do. You can't tell for the first three games, but it just seems that they never go away and you can see what they did to New York; down 3-0 and to be in that atmosphere and that kind of competition to come back, it says a lot for a ballclub's character. And I believe that -- it's hard to stay down 3-0 but we are definitely the same type ballclub.

WOODY WILLIAMS: No, I don't believe so. We've had success. Bottom line is we haven't played the way we're capable of playing, and once we do I think we'll be okay. But we can't keep waiting. There's very few of us that are doing things the way they've done all season. We haven't had the breaks we needed, we haven't gotten the timely hits, haven't been pitching all that well as a starter. Bottom line is we have to go out there and keep plugging away.

WOODY WILLIAMS: I'm not sure if you watched what we were doing, but we didn't play with full strength those two weeks at all. We gave some guys a day off and made sure the pitching was lined up the way Tony wanted it lined up. Hopefully that's not the case. I understand your question, and we didn't play good late in the season. We played good against the Dodgers, and fought hard against the Astros and played well. It seems right now things aren't going our way, but we have to make them go our way.

WOODY WILLIAMS: That's a good question, too. I think bottom line is they're a very patient hitting ballclub. For whatever reason we've thrown pretty good breaking balls out of the strike zone, and they've been laying off those, and the ones we throw that aren't so good they're putting a good strike on. We have to make them continually try to hit our pitch, but we haven't had that success yet. And as a pitching staff all year, we haven't walked that many guys, and here we are, we're walking everyone. Every time you do that, you give a team of the Red Sox caliber extra innings. And we have to make runs and make them early.