AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v ATHLETICS

October 5, 2003

Ken Macha

KEN MACHA: I come back to the same answer I gave you yesterday. There was probably some concern, but our starter goes out there, has a problem with his hip. Our guys played their rearends off. It was a tremendous ballgame. They were tremendous. I can't see why we aren't going to come out and play a great game tomorrow...

KEN MACHA: Most of the time I asked the pitching coach, and he said he's throwing great. And he said the last pitch of the first inning, basically, it was the same problem he had when we started the playoffs in Minnesota last year. Like I said, we're in a position to win the game. Bullpen did a great job.

KEN MACHA: It appeared to me we kind of threw him a lot of fastballs. It looked like he was trying to hit the ball in on them. I think we were moving around a little bit. He's been out there against him a bunch, so he knows him. When you get behind guys, they hurt you. Walker, we got behind him again, he gets a three-run hit off Rincon. He threw a lot of pitches and he finally got one of them.

KEN MACHA: We're very aware of what's in front of us. Pedro is a great pitcher, and two Cy Young guys going out there to pitch against each other. As I answered the first question, these guys came out prepared today. They played hard, they grind it out. We did what we could to win. They made a lot of pretty good plays in the field. We had a hit and run going and line drive to Millar. Chavez hits the ball out there in the big hole out there in center field, bounces in the stands. It could have been a triple. But that's baseball. Those things happen, we could have had an extra run here or there, but that's the way it is. These guys, they'll be prepared to play tomorrow.

KEN MACHA: That's tough to say. To me, we got right where we wanted to go today to get to our closer. We got some pretty good guys there. The save was in the 8th inning because you have the top of the order coming up. We got outs anyway. We have to get over the hump tomorrow. It's going to be a battle, like all these games have been a battle.

KEN MACHA: They have good arms out there. Timlin came in, he has great velocity. One particular point in time he was a closer, and Williamson was the same kind of guy down over in Cincinnati. These guys have been in situations to do it, and it appears to me they're throwing good, they have good velocity going, and they have good pitches.