AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v ATHLETICS

October 6, 2003

Ken Macha

KEN MACHA: All I can go by is when he threw on the side over there in Boston, and he said he felt great. He caught an early flight and got here long before we did, so he should be good to go.

KEN MACHA: I'm probably not going to say a whole lot. We've had a decent approach against them. We've got his pitch count up a bunch the two games we've played them. These guys have faced them already, and we've got some runs off them. What I say before the game, you know, we played 166 games, there's not much we can say. Go get 'em and relax and play.

KEN MACHA: He went to get an MRI today and I saw him in the locker room, talked to him, and they're going to have the doctor look at him when he comes back, when the doctor gets here.

KEN MACHA: That's a good question. In these two particular cases, they were trying to hard. I would like to see them back off a little bit and do what they can do. I had a little bit of an overview over all these four games here. They've been tremendous ballgames, decided in the last inning, three of them. One game we didn't play very well, and one game they didn't play very well. We need to go out there and just play a good solid ballgame, relax, play. It's probably going to be another great game tonight. I wouldn't really consider them struggling. To me, when I hear people saying they're struggling or this or that or whatever, all of these have been great ballgames, let's go play another great ballgame tonight and leave everything on the field and just relax and let it fly.

KEN MACHA: I think there is more apprehension in the articles in the paper. These guys are ready to play. They have confidence with Barry going out there. Some of the guys viewed the games in Boston, as we played well enough to win, particularly yesterday. What a turnaround once Hudson went out of there to have our bullpen come in there and pitch as well as they did. It was disappointing not to close it out. We battled the whole time and the previous day we had a couple of chances to score. But, like I said before, the emotion level, Eric sliding in and running into the catcher and his knee hurt, and the emotions take over rather than the focus of what you should be doing. I want emotions to be under control and just go play the game.

KEN MACHA: I was made aware of the article and I spoke with Tim. To me, it's a nonissue. He explained to me what happened, and nothing happened.

KEN MACHA: We'll see how he's doing. I try to always see how the game dictates with Barry. I just look at it, everybody is probably available today. Ted Lilly, checking out of the hotel yesterday and Ted Lilly came up to me and said, if you need an inning, you've got one out of me tomorrow. Everybody is ready to kick in. We'll see if we can score some runs off of Pedro and turn it over to the bullpen.

KEN MACHA: Nothing happened in the bar.

KEN MACHA: I haven't talked to him. He is in the lineup. Yesterday he went out to take BP. Yesterday he said his back was starting to get stiff and he went out to take BP, he said he couldn't go. I talked to him after the game and he said he was feeling pretty good. I haven't talked to him. I just put his name in the lineup. If the case be and Melhuse gets back there, he did an admirable job yesterday. And you've got to go with what you got.

KEN MACHA: Here again, I think it's a nonissue. My focus is on the game today. As it was explained to me, it's absolutely -- he's sitting there and he's amazed at what this thing has been blown out to. It's a nonissue.