AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RED SOX v YANKEES

October 20, 2004

Derek Lowe

DEREK LOWE: You know, first of all, it's an historic event. This has never happened before. You know, I really know they are going to appreciate it, and I know the city appreciates how hard this was because this was the best team in baseball for a lot of years, and to be four in a row, and we had just lost by 11 runs to come back. I said earlier, I think the biggest play of the series was Dave Roberts' stolen base in Game 4. It got us an opportunity to get to Rivera, and you know, you always say you think you have a chance but realistically maybe in the back of your mind you don't know. But we just kept winning and we wanted to try to get to the next day and we kept doing that.

DEREK LOWE: No, I came in fully confident. I think you can look at the two days' rest, but you can also look at the fact that I only pitched once in 16 days, so it wasn't like I was pitching every five days. And so, it was a personal challenge for me to see if I could come back in the stadium after the disaster I had in September, gave up seven runs in one inning. You try to personally see if you can pitch a better game. You know, we scored six runs early and really it allows you a few more mistakes but I didn't think like that. I kept thinking, this offense is so good, especially in this stadium, you really try to keep the crowd out of it as much as you can. And by doing that, you can throw strike one, you know and don't walk anybody. I think it gives you your best chance.

DEREK LOWE: You've just got to go -- I kept telling myself, we had no idea how long I was going to go, and they didn't, either. So you just take it one pitch, one hitter at a time and I know it sounds simple and that's the way I try to take it and really try to slow the game down, because the game can get out of hand pretty quick here. The third inning obviously for me was the biggest inning. I hit Cairo, stole second, Jeter base hit, you're 1-1 or 2-1 on A-Rod and get him and get Sheffield and get us straight back in the dugout. I was fortunate tonight to have a good changeup and I got over half my outs on changeups. Felt like keep throwing it until they make an adjustment, and it worked.

DEREK LOWE: Yeah, we're all competitors. When someone tells you that you really can't do something that you think you can, given an opportunity, you want to go out there and prove to yourself that you can do it. There was a lot in this series for me personally, because the decision to put me in the bullpen was correct because I pitched poorly down the stretch. I was able to pitch three games against Anaheim and New York and win two of them. But, you know, Game 4, we really didn't have anything to lose. You go out there and you just try to pitch well. But tonight was a different story because people kind of really -- games like this can make or break your so-called career and I know a lot of people in Boston have been talking about this whole free agency thing and keep saying, is this going to be your last game. You know, luckily, it's not going to be.