AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS v YANKEES

October 4, 2003

Ron Gardenhire

RON GARDENHIRE: Santana is fine. He threw with the bullpen and everything seems to be going good. His legs feel good. He had this earlier in the year. We got through it, he got through it. It's just one of those things that happens and hopefully he's up and at it and all of those good things and he won't have those leg cramps. As far as having somebody on standby, we have pitchers in the bullpen, we have Kenny Rogers, Milton, Reed and all of those guys. They have been starters. We don't have them on standby but they are in the bullpen.

RON GARDENHIRE: I think, sure, we hope they start hitting the ball. But when you are facing great pitching staffs, that's what happens. There's not a lot of hitting that goes on and you have to get lucky, you have to get fortunate. You're facing another great pitcher today. Sure you'd like to see everybody banging the ball around and get some things going. Pettitte took us out of our game a little bit, he's tough to run on, he didn't give us too many baserunners and he's tough to run off. Hopefully we can do some things today and get some people on base and see what happens. Sure, we would like to see everybody hitting. Hopefully it will work out. Good pitchers have a tendency to stop good hitting.

RON GARDENHIRE: I think Johan was fine. He was very excited about it. We were concerned the first inning how he would react. We didn't know; he's a young kid but he pitched really well. He was going right at them and used his pitches. I thought he handled himself great. He was doing fine.

RON GARDENHIRE: Well, I think you'll see a lot of hooting and hollering. I'm sure it's going to be very loud. It's a magical moment, as they say. It will be fun to see him back out on the baseball field. He came in our clubhouse yesterday and we got a chance to say hello to him. That was pretty exciting just to see him again, see him smiling. He looks great. As everybody said, everybody should go into the hospital for a diet. He looks great and we are happy to have him back and it's going to be good to have him around today.

RON GARDENHIRE: We are going to go at them as best we can. Lohse, he's going to pitch his game. We have scouting records on them what they can and can't do, but good hitters make adjustments, too. We are going to go at them. We pretty much pitch guys the same in the Dome as we do everywhere else. Make some quality pitches so that they hit the ball and we catch the ball because that's what we do best. We'll go after them and hopefully we'll make enough quality pitches to get them out.

RON GARDENHIRE: I think the Yankees definitely have the experience. They have been through a lot of different situations. They have been in the playoffs a lot. I don't think too many places intimidate them. It can be a bonus for us, though. It can get our players going. The Astroturf, we can use this thing pretty good. It can be a bonus for our baseball team when our fans get behind us and our players get going here, it can be good for us. With the Yankees, I don't think they will be too intimidated by too many things.

RON GARDENHIRE: We talked about that earlier in the office. Yeah, that's a little frustrating that you're sitting there and you know there's going to be a ballgame tomorrow and we still don't have a time for it. I understand all of the TV and I understand all of those things. But you'd sure like to have a time for our fans, for our teams, just let us know what time we are going to play. That's all we need around here and we'll get after it as best we can. Yeah, that's a little disappointing.