AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ANGELS v TWINS

October 10, 2002

Jarrod Washburn

JARROD WASHBURN: I would have liked to have been able to go out there. You know, it was eating at me having to wait until Game 3. But any time you can throw Appier out there in Game 1 and Ortiz in Game 2, that's two very good pitchers. I was all right with waiting my turn.

JARROD WASHBURN: I think I ran out of gas because it was a combination of a lot of things, not just because I was on three days' rest. It was a day game, awful hot out there. The Yankees made me throw a lot of pitches early in the game. Put tough at-bats up there against me. So, you're throwing 20, 25 pitches an inning, that will take a lot out of you pretty fast. Yeah, I mean, it's always best to be on regular rest, but, you know, I would have felt comfortable throwing on three days' rest again.

JARROD WASHBURN: I think that's probably just the only reason, is because they're predominantly a left-handed hitting line-up. That being said, they're not going to come out here and roll over tomorrow. They're going to go out there, battle me, put tough at-bats together. The guy that gives me the most problems is Hocking, and, you know, we've had some great battles over the past years. He's won most of them. So, you know, I'm actually -- feel kind of bad that he can't be in there against me. I figured I'd be facing him. I always look forward to facing guys like that, you know. I love the way he plays the game and I know it's probably killing him not being able to play in this series. It's too bad that he got hurt that way.

JARROD WASHBURN: I feel great. I feel just as good as I did first month of the season. It's -- it doesn't feel to me like I've thrown over 200 innings. In the years past, I have run out of gas at the end of the year and got fatigued. You know, this year that hasn't been a problem at all.

JARROD WASHBURN: Well, it always -- it's always nice because lefties don't like to hit off of lefties. So, you know, that's good. But I just like to pitch. I don't really care if the guy's up there being lefty or righty. If a guy's a good hitter, it doesn't matter really if he's lefty or righty. Corey Koskie, Mientkiewicz, Jones, those guys are good hitters. Don't matter to me if they're lefty or righty. If I make a mistake, they're going to make me pay for it. So it doesn't matter.

JARROD WASHBURN: Really, I just remember being disappointed, but at the same time we weren't in a panic at all. We just came to the field and approached every game the same. And we knew we were a better team than that, so we just tried to put it behind us. You know, it's hard to do when you get -- read -- open the paper every morning and you read we're off to the worst start in franchise history. That's tough to do. But we did a great job, being able to bounce back. We knew we had a few guys that were banged up a little bit in the beginning of the year, lost Ersty for a while, Percy was on the DL. Then having Glaus and Spiezio out with the suspensions they had early in the year, we knew we didn't have our full team out there. We knew it was just a matter of time before we turned it around and started playing ball the way we knew we were capable of doing.

JARROD WASHBURN: I don't know if I can answer that honestly. I don't know if I could tell you. I might be feeling different right now if we were down 0-2, but I don't know. Because we're not. So, you know, I'm nervous. It's 1-1. Now it's a five-game series, and we got to win three. So, yeah, I guess maybe I would be a little more anxious if we had to win four out of five, because we were down 0-2. But I couldn't honestly answer that question.