AL DIVISION SERIES: ANGELS v YANKEES

October 3, 2002

Brendan Donnelly

BRENDAN DONNELLY: Well, it's huge for myself or any pitcher that has a rough outing the night before. You want to get back out there as soon as possible in a key situation. And he just showed the same confidence that he showed in all of us all year long. It's not the first game that something bad has happened to one of us, and he's gone right back to us all season long. That just shows, you know, the confidence that Scios and Buddy and everybody has in our bullpen, you know, coming right back out and trying to get it done the next night.

BRENDAN DONNELLY: I don't know if we're a "scrappy" group. We're a team that comes to play every day. The chemistry on that team, the guys in that clubhouse, it's something special, something I've never been a part of - and I'm having fun being a part of it, I promise you that. This team, in all aspects of the game, we know we can play the game and we can play with pretty much anybody on a given night. But that's baseball. I think every team out there can play with anybody on any night. It's just a matter of putting it all together. Right now, you know, we're playing pretty good as a whole, you know. Our bullpen's been pretty good all year. We scuffled a little bit in the first couple of games, but our offense has come back and picked us up, which was huge. The first night they did their job. But last night, I think eight or nine guys were swinging the bat well. That's fun to watch. If they keep doing that, the bullpen will figure it out, and we'll go ahead and be able to get the ball to Percy in a little better situation hopefully and continue on.

BRENDAN DONNELLY: To be honest with you, I don't know his situation. You know, I don't really have role models as far as time put in the game or whatever. I just continue to play the game and try to fit myself -- I look at myself as a puzzle piece, and I try to put myself into the right puzzle. I'm just fortunate I got the opportunity the Angels gave me to come up and see if I could pitch at this level. It took the third time around to actually get something done. I owe a lot to Buddy Black, Mike Butcher (ph), the AAA pitching coach, and Troy Percival, who's helped me as far as how to pitch, you know. He told me, he said, "Hey, you got good stuff." Now he kind of gave me a plan as far as how to use it. Buddy Black calms me down and keeps me under control when needed. With those three guys, Mike Butcher doing the same thing, I've been able to come up here. I'm not established yet. I'm trying to establish myself. It's going to be a while before that happens. Right now I'm just trying to do the best I could do right now to get this team winning.

BRENDAN DONNELLY: Well, after the -- I think directly after the home run, Eck was the first one to come up to me on the mound. And he gave me a little punch in the chest and said, "Hey, get this guy, because it's not over." Then in the clubhouse, obviously. You know, Bernie Williams' home run I think was the one that broke our bat because we were going back and forth, back and forth. One run isn't a whole lot, but three is enormous at the end of a game. That's hard to overcome. Percy came up to me, you know; Fish. Said, "You're going to be right back out there tomorrow." I know that. Baseball is a game where you have to have a short memory. If you don't, the game will humble you, it will eat you alive if you can't forget about it and move on. That's how I was going about things. That's not the first game I've blown, it won't be the last. If I can stay around the game long enough, it won't be the last.

BRENDAN DONNELLY: The way I have been looking at it for about a month and a half now, I feel like most of our games have been playoff games because we were in such a tight race. You know, we had the series here with Seattle early, then the Yankees series. We were sold out for all six of those games. Go up to Yankee Stadium, go up to Seattle, go to Oakland. All those seemed like they had a playoff atmosphere. Even the last game here against Seattle, when it got down to the last inning or so, it was a one-run game, and it turned into a playoff atmosphere. With that, I think that helped our whole club as a group. This is the first time for a lot of guys - well, almost everybody down there, for the playoffs. I think the tight race has actually prepared us for what we're seeing right now, what we just saw at Yankee Stadium, what we're going to see tomorrow night, with it sold out out here. I think we just benefitted from the tight race.

BRENDAN DONNELLY: What did I think when Troy hit Soriano? Obviously, didn't want to see it, because that loaded the bases and put the tying run at second base. But at the same time, you know, it happened. It's baseball. You know, he got hit. We got Jeter -- he came right back and got Jeter and got us out of the inning and finished it off in the ninth. I was surprised to see it just due to the fact that he has such good control. He came in that first pitch, let it fly. Probably flew up a little bit, and got him pretty good. But probably a little bit, but he was fine after that. The next pitch directly after that was, you know, 97, 98 - I don't know what it was - but it was coming in pretty hot to Jeter. He finished Derek off the way that Percy does; that's his game.