NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: MARLINS v CUBS

October 9, 2003

Jack McKeon

JACK McKEON: No, you won't see much of Cabrera at shortstop. That was just a case of giving Mike a few at-bats. Cabrera had played short previously. And keeping his bat in the line-up, you're down nine or ten runs, defense is not that important. You need offense.

JACK McKEON: Pudge, he's back to his All-Star status again. I think last year was a case where maybe he had an off year, and it was due to injuries. But this year he seems completely healthy. He's playing remarkably well. And, really, in the playoffs he's been spectacular. He's been a take-charge guy, a leader of the ballclub, and very vocal. He's leading by example. He's playing hard, breaking up double plays, getting clutch hits, and doing a good job with the pitching.

JACK McKEON: It's tough. We ran through that a couple of times this year, when we got behind early. We're not a club that can catch up from 8, 9 runs behind. But you keep it down 3 or 4, we have a chance. I think that runs in cycles, especially in the playoffs. You've got a lot of adrenaline flowing, and guys are trying to do more than they're capable of doing. I think it was the case yesterday. Penny was throwing hard, but he didn't have good location. And we've seen him like that before. But we've also seen him very effective at times. And Beckett, in his situation, got behind, and didn't have good location, and that's the key. And after the first inning he settled down and was his regular self again. But, yeah, you try to impress upon your pitchers to be aggressive and not try to be too fine. I think sometimes guys get too fine in these crucial series like these.

JACK McKEON: Well, we're just making bad pitches to him. What has he got? The biggest hits he's got is two home runs. The rest of the time we've been able to get him out, most of the time. But the guy's made bad location, and that's going to happen, whether you've got Sosa or Gonzalez or Alou up there. If you make bad pitches to them, they're going to hit them. Unfortunately we made some bad pitches to them. The other four or five times or six times we made good pitches to them and got them out. Just because he hits a home run doesn't mean we're going to have to pitch any differently, we're just going to have to make a better location of our pitches. And it's easier said than done. You're out there, you want to get the ball on the outside or inside or down low or up high and you get it in the wrong location, and all those big guys, the Bonds and the Sheffields and the Sosas, Alous, they're going to take you deep. The same situation with Alou. The good thing about the Cubs is they've got a pretty good offensive guy

behind Sosa. It's like playing with fire.

JACK McKEON: Well, you know, you always like to play at home, number one. And we play extremely well at home. And we went to San Francisco and we knew it was going to be very tough out there. And we would like to have won two games, but we were very happy to come out split knowing we were coming back home and we play extremely well back here. And with our crowds supporting us like they have been the last month or so, it just energizes our players at home. And we've had some good comeback victories at home before big crowds. But I think the crowds have really helped the ball players, gave them life, energized them to see 60,000, 65,000 people out here root for you, as is the same situation with the Cubs. When you're in Chicago, you're playing with the hometown crowd that's got to inspire these guys.

JACK McKEON: No, not really.

JACK McKEON: Everybody had a laugh. I stood up and pointed at the home plate and said the plate's over here. But I think it broke up everybody. When you get the heck kicked out of you, you need a little fun somewhere along the line. It was one of those guys when you got behind 8-0, you're pretty much out of it. And that kind of broke up the guys a little bit, relaxed them a bit.

JACK McKEON: Well, I think you'll probably have some lower scoring games here than you would Wrigley. You've got a bigger ballpark, number one. But the wind blows out in Wrigley. That's like playing the Red Sox, when you play the Red Sox at Fenway, they seem to have a tremendous edge over the opposition. And I think the Cubs do in Wrigley. I think they're familiar with the ballpark. We know down here we're familiar with this ballpark, and we have the crowd behind us. And I don't know, for some reason your pitching is going to be a determining factor. And whether you pitch good or bad at home or on the road, it's this particular night you have to be concerned with. And guys have good nights and bad nights. We just hope our pitchers have some good nights and their pitchers have some bad nights.

JACK McKEON: Well, we won 100-some games with Gonzalez playing shortstop, and I feel we have the best defensive infield in the League. When you're looking for good pitching, you have to have good defense. They talk about defense wins ballgame. If that's the case, Gonzalez is going to be shortstop. If you take one isolated game where you got the hell kicked out of you and say, hey, the shortstop isn't hitting, no one else did, either. Sure, we realize he's a much better hitter than he's showing right now. And he has come up with some key hits for us. But his defense is very special out there. You take the game the night before. He basically saved the game the night before. So you discard the hitting. Give me a good shortstop and let the rest of those guys hit. And we have an outstanding shortstop and second baseman to make the double plays and all the plays in the field. The old saying, you can live by the bat, you can die by the bat. We're going to live by the defense. When you're behind, it doesn't make a difference who you've got. If you're in a tied ballgame or ahead or in the early innings, you're not going to worry about the offense of the shortstop, you're going to worry about the defense. And he's exceptional.

JACK McKEON: Well, Kerry Wood is a good pitcher. He's pitched against us a couple of times, and we've had some pretty good ballgames with him. I think he beat us, I don't know, 3-1, 3-2, and then 1-0. He's had some good outings. But we had a number of chances to score on him, and he was able to get us out. But today he's seeing a better ballclub than the last time he pitched against us. I'm not taking anything away from Kerry Wood. He's an outstanding pitcher, and he's going to be tough, there's no question about it. He's been beat 11 times so far. So he's not unbeatable.

JACK McKEON: Well, this club had a lot of talent, I knew that when I came in here. And I knew that from watching them in Cincinnati when I managed the Reds, and watching them on television. And I didn't think they were reaching the level they needed to reach. And I had an opportunity to see them. When I had the first meeting with them I told them that we could be contenders to play in October if they wanted to change the way they were doing things. And if they didn't, there was the door. But basically it was prove your work habits, focus a little bit better, dig a little deeper, leave your egos at the door, let's play unselfish baseball. And the most important thing I wanted them to do was to be able to come to the ballpark and have fun. Because I believe if you have fun you're going to win. And these guys have been having a lot of fun.

JACK McKEON: Our two guys, when you analyze the season, you see games, when they get on base they cause problems for any pitcher. I don't care if it's Mark Prior, Kerry Wood or Jason Schmidt or any of those guys. They just make it a little tougher. They've got to be on their toes, because these guys can steal a base, they can go first to third, they can score on a long double, and they're conscious of those two guys. So that kind of takes a little concentration away from their pitching to the hitters. And this is why we've been so successful, when you get those two guys on, when we get them on both at the same time, we score. And really they're the catalyst of our ballclub. You stop them, we have a tough time scoring.