NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 10, 2004

Phil Garner

PHIL GARNER: I've been doing it for a long time. When you get later in the ballgame, I've made the double-switch in that situation. I do it in the tie game, I do it when we're ahead. I don't do it when we're down.

PHIL GARNER: Well, he was at the end of his road. As a matter of fact, he was on pure fumes. He got us through it. He had us in a good situation, we just couldn't stop it. You know Qualls has been outstanding for us, gives up a three-run home run. But Roger did his job today, got us to the fifth inning, we had a lead. We had some momentum, we had the lead. We let it slip away.

PHIL GARNER: Not intentionally. We gave him way too good of a pitch to hit.

PHIL GARNER: Yes, I did. I wanted Kent to stay in the ballgame. I turned to our bench coach and said, "Kent will be a factor in this game." We had him in the situation.

PHIL GARNER: Well, they shut us down. Our objective was to score early and score often. We scored early but we forgot to score often. We didn't put anything else really the rest of the way. We hung around until they got back in the ballgame and we didn't do anything else. The problem is, when you get Smoltz in a ballgame, he's awful tough. He's been tough against us since he's been in the bullpen. So we needed to score something before we got there and we didn't do it, obviously.

PHIL GARNER: Well, we had an opportunity, and the way I did it, Palmeiro had some success off of Smoltz. So if I designed an opportunity to win a ballgame off of Smoltz, I've got Palmeiro in a situation to do it. You have to give them credit for making a fantastic play. Giles could have easily thrown the ball a little bit wide, a little bit low, something. Smoltz could have hesitated one second to get over there, but they made a nice play.

PHIL GARNER: Yes. I spoke with Roger after the end of the fourth inning. He was running on fumes then, but he obviously was tired in the fifth inning.

PHIL GARNER: Well, we would have loved to have done it here. The crowd was really into it. People were excitable and exciting. The place was rocking. We didn't close it out, but we've been doing things very unusual for the last couple of months. I don't know if it's going to be -- it certainly is going to be difficult, but that's what we've been doing, difficult things. Now we have to go to Atlanta. Obviously they're feeling pretty good after this today. They won two ballgames on us, late in the ballgame. We're going to have to tighten up our belt. We're going to have to play a little tougher tomorrow.

PHIL GARNER: I have no idea. I think that Roger labored a little more on his last outing than normal. Today he labored early through the ballgame, innings two, three and four he labored quite a bit. I would think that if Roy runs into difficulty, then I don't know what will happen. But Roy didn't have as much trouble the last outing. I took him out a little bit earlier, so we'll have to see. I don't know.