NL DIVISION SERIES: MARLINS v GIANTS

October 2, 2003

Jack McKeon

JACK McKEON: Well, I would expect he'd say that (laughter). Well, he can't hit any in Covey Cove here. But, no, they're not intimidated. But you got to be realistic. You got to go with your head, not your heart. I think every pitcher in the game of baseball would like to go out there and say, "I'd like to challenge this guy and get him out." But I think a lot of guys have been very unsuccessful in their attempt. But we're going to pitch to him just like we've been pitching to him: cautiously, and if necessary, we'll take different measures.

JACK McKEON: He can hit left-handers as good as he hits right-handers. This guy is probably one of the greatest players in the history of this game. You've got to give him his due. We're certainly not -- I can't say we're not going to take a chance on pitching to him. We did that yesterday twice. But on the other hand, you got to be, you know, careful on how you go about it. You know, all guys can say, "I can get this guy out. I'm going to pitch him inside, outside." So what. Now you don't get the ball there, it's a three-run homer. "They will say, "Hey, McKeon, I thought you weren't going to pitch to him. How come you pitched to Bonds?" You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. You walk him, he steals a base, scores a run, you should have let him hit. If he hits one out in the cove, you should have walked him. You know, we got to take the bitter with the sweet.

JACK McKEON: I think they're our 10th man really. When you look at it, they've been tremendous here. Every time we've had a big crowd here, we've played extremely well, hit the ball well, and had an exciting game. I think we've had two or three comeback wins. But they're energized, they're loud. They kind of spur the players on.

JACK McKEON: Well, I think you're talking about early in the season. Probably from June on, we've had substantial increase in attendance. You take the last probably 10 games, maybe 15 games, we probably had upwards to 15 to 35, 38 thousand people here, except for maybe a hot Sunday afternoon. But I think, you know, it took a while for baseball to catch on, people to realize this was a good ballclub, come out and see them, you know, bring life back into the baseball community here. I don't think it enters into the players' minds at all. I think they're excited. They love to see people out here.

JACK McKEON: I don't know. You'll have to wait till tomorrow.

JACK McKEON: No. We were kind of figuring on him pitching to one or two hitters, maybe three. If he got the first guy out, he got Bonds out, we'd let him go the next couple hitters. If he got an inning, it worked okay. But three hitters is enough.

JACK McKEON: I don't know. You know, he hasn't faced anybody yet, except for that couple at-bats here. That's an unknown. You know, you can put him in there, he maybe gets four or five hits, or maybe go 0-for-5. You don't really know what's going to happen really. He's getting better and better with more batting, no question about that. He's getting the rust away a little bit. But it's hard to determine.

JACK McKEON: Not necessarily.

JACK McKEON: I don't know. I mean, I'm going to sit down, talk to my coaches, see what he does out there today, determine, you know, where we want to go.

JACK McKEON: I don't think you manage too much differently. Maybe an occasion or two here or there. But yesterday was a situation where, hey, we're down 4-1. We need runs. You know, maybe in the middle of the season, beginning of the season, you might let your pitcher go out there. We need runs. We're a club that, you know, we can't give away outs. We pinch hit for Penny. We got the hit there. Pitching-wise, we had Helling there. Helling was a pitcher that is a control-type pitcher. You know hitters are going to put the ball in playoff him. Pavano was a guy that had a little different kind of stuff. We figured we'd go with Pavano in that situation. But it wasn't a case where we were, you know, going at it as a case of urgency.

JACK McKEON: He's an outstanding pitcher. He's done a good job for us. All through the season, you run across a pitcher or two, reliever, gets in a jam, goes through a little slump, just like the hitter does. You saw that with Rivera from the Yankees, I guess everybody about Gagne. But it was very encouraging to see him come in yesterday. Three balls, no strikes, come back, get the guy out, get out of that inning. It was a real plus. It had to be a confidence-builder for Loop, who struggled his last two or three times out. Buy I think he's on the right track now. He's going to have to help us.

JACK McKEON: How do I know? How does anybody know? He's never faced them before. I think he's going to do all right. He's a very intelligent, smart pitcher. Knows how to pitch. He's very effective in changing speeds. You know, we're hopeful that that might be the ticket for these guys.

JACK McKEON: I don't know. Wish I did.

JACK McKEON: He's a different type pitcher. You know, I know the Giants haven't faced him before. But he's a control-type guy. You know, he makes you hit the ball. He changes speed extremely well. He's smart. He can pitch in or out. He just must keep the ball (inaudible) of the plate. His biggest plus is the fact that he changes speed so good .

JACK McKEON: I'm very comfortable. I have to be because that's the bench. But, you know, you'd love to have Pujols, a few other guys sitting on the bench over there. But you don't. We're very comfortable. We made our 25-man roster with those guys included. It was a case where we were satisfied with the production we got out of them. Hollandsworth has done a good job pinch hitting for us, Banks, Harris. You know, we're okay for at least three more games with those guys.

JACK McKEON: Two reasons. I wanted to make sure we could go with the next pitcher we brought in. If we had to go a little bit longer, we could get two innings out of him by switching. And Cabrera had made the last out, so he was the guy. Had Conine made the last out, Conine would have been the guy.

JACK McKEON: Well, there's no question about that. We went in there hoping to win two. But we were very, very happy to come out with a split. We knew the first game we were going to face an extremely tough pitcher, probably one of the best in the league. We knew we had our hands full there. We were hoping we could come out on top. Beckett pitched an outstanding game. We just didn't score any reasons. All credit to Schmidt. He did an outstanding job of keeping our guys off base. We also knew once we came back home, we play extreme well here. We hit much better here and we pitch better here. It was a case where we left San Francisco, you know, on a real high.

JACK McKEON: Yeah, unless we can trade for somebody in the meantime. No, Willis is going to start. You know, that was the same rotation we've had for a while. I see a lot of comments about, "Well, you know, you could have juggled this guy, that guy." You know, you got to figure, you know, the question came up, "Why didn't you stick a left-hander in there between the two right-handers?" Redman would have had to come back with two days' rest, three days' rest, and then we hadn't clinched it yet. The second thing is, you know, if I would have pitched Redman with three days' rest, he got beat, the next guy got beat, we lost the wildcards, every one of the writers would have been saying, "You're panicking. You pitched a guy with two days' rest." We felt this is the way, you know, we went all along. This is what carried us. Why change? We're satisfied the way we're going. We're going to continue to play the way we've been playing. I don't know why we should change.