NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ASTROS v CARDINALS

October 16, 2004

Tony La Russa

TONY LaRUSSA: Just quality pitches, especially location. Good movement.

TONY LaRUSSA: No. It's kind of what you expect from him. I mean, he's got a lot of credits on his resume and he's earned every one of them. Got the two early runs. I mean, we had a great chance to win it because Sup (Jeff Suppan) was outstanding. I kept thinking we'd break through and could never put anything together and that's a credit to Clemens and then to Lidge at the end, the last two innings.

TONY LaRUSSA: Very cool customer. I'd disagree with you, the game he pitched in LA to end the Division Series had a lot of significance, much like this one. Maybe more, because if you lose that one, it goes to a deciding game. I think he's a very cool guy. I don't mean the way he talks or dresses, but on the mound. He doesn't get fazed. He made a pitch, made a great pitch to Bagwell, thought we might get out of it. Then, boom, two swings, three runs. But he was outstanding after that. He gave us a terrific chance to win.

TONY LaRUSSA: Well, I think that's a great question to ask the Astros when they come up here. They know more than we do. I think if you look at the home runs that have been hit by both sides, they've been all hittable pitches, not really what the rest of the pitches -- they've been getting a bunch of outs. I mean, all three pitches that we threw today were up in the zone. Larry (Walker) hit a first pitch. I think Jim (Edmonds) hit a fork ball that was up. I'm not sure he took too many more fork balls that were up. Dangerous lineups and mistakes, guys are punishing. They're not popping any of them up. Today there were not a whole lot of mistakes.

TONY LaRUSSA: Yeah, we thought about it. Then you face Bagwell, Berkman. But Haren had an impressive sixth. The way I look at it, with that short porch, I think Beltran is hitting a better average than the right-hand side. So he got a fastball up in a fastball count.

TONY LaRUSSA: Well, if I was in that clubhouse, that's what I'd be saying. In our clubhouse, we played ourselves into an edge in the series, and I mean, I was really pleased with what I saw today. We were grinding those at-bats like we needed to. We pitched well enough to give us a chance to win, late two home runs. I feel like we've earned the edge, and somewhere, somehow, we'll make that edge pay off because we're going to play the same way tomorrow.