AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v ATHLETICS

October 2, 2003

Ken Macha

KEN MACHA: I got to say he has. This is a throwback to last year. I think it was in 2001, he was pitcher of the month for both August and September. When he's got it going, he has good pitches. And you saw that curve ball was working. He threw five of those guys out. That's shows you how he was throwing.

KEN MACHA: Well, actually, after we did get the lead, that's when they scored. Mirabelli hit the double and then he made a little bit of a mistake to Damon. Then you're in the middle of their lineup. To me, the outs he got out after that were the big ones of the game to score, jump on and take the lead and have the other team come back. He did a great job of going through it two, three, four, guys to keep the score just to one run.

KEN MACHA: Barry has the ability to do that. Tim does also. But those guys still had great at-bats, you look at it, and they put the pressure on both Tim and Barry, and it's reflected in their pitch counts. Barry is 110 in seven innings, they made him work for every year. Extremely dangerous lineup and led the league in hitting. And you're going to make them throw strikes, so hard to pitch seven strong innings only to give up one run. That's a great job against that lineup.

KEN MACHA: Whether it be at Fenway or here or wherever, the team that plays the best solid game normally is one that winds up on top. That's got to be our focus. We have played a lot of great games at Fenway the last couple of years. Some of the most exciting games I've ever witnessed. I've seen a few Major League games. It will be exciting. Their fans are relentless, and it will be interesting. It will be fun.

KEN MACHA: We compiled a lot of information. The advance scout is one piece of the puzzle. He does a great job with it. Our pitch coach, Rick, studies a ton of film. We have a video guy who basically the whole month of September taped almost every game the Red Sox played. So there's a lot of preparation that goes into this thing, not just the advance scouts, but our pitching coach does it and then sit down with Terry and Brad Fisher and myself and we go over all these where they hit the ball and everything and try to defend them properly. There's a bunch of pieces of the puzzle that have to fit in, and it deals with the preparation we do have here in Oakland.

KEN MACHA: He told me he was fine and he's my best pitcher.