AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS v ATHLETICS

October 1, 2002

Art Howe

ART HOWE: It's really hard to say. I mean, there were so many changes made in our club in late May. I think when we started making those changes, things started turning around for us, performance-wise, and then the addition of players like Mabry and Durham and Rincon, basically like the icing on the cake.

ART HOWE: Just has great stuff, basically, he can turn strikes with all his pitches, it's hard to sit on anything from him, and just has above-average stuff.

ART HOWE: Well, thank goodness it didn't rain. I think we dodged a bullet there, but it's not in great shape, but, you know, both teams are going to have to deal with it, and they did the best job they could to get it in playing shape, so we just hope -- probably both teams hope it won't affect the outcome of any of the games.

ART HOWE: Just what his role has been all year, come off the bench, hopefully get us a big hit if we need it, play defense, either in left field or first base, basically, that's it.

ART HOWE: Not at all. I think we (inaudible) last week and he was a big part of it. He has pitched great baseball all year long and we expect the same thing here in the post-season.

ART HOWE: Not at all, because we know that Minnesota is a solid club and we had a battle every time we played them, and it should be a great series because both teams match up pretty well.

ART HOWE: Well, I hope they are right for a change.

ART HOWE: He has had a great season. He missed a full month of the season and he ended up with 19 wins. That tells you what kind of season he has had, phenomenal. If he is healthy, probably 23, 24, at least wins, and he had another Cy Young type season. He followed up last season's performance with another solid one. We feel great about him going in game two.

ART HOWE: When you are not playing well and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, you tend to think of the worst, really, and it didn't look like things were going to be able to be turned around at that time, but the people we brought up from our Triple A club pitched in immediately and started us going in the right direction and, like I said, Billy made some key acquisitions and everything seemed to fall into (inaudible) and the pitching started to come on strong.