AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS v ATHLETICS

October 4, 2002

Ron Gardenhire

RON GARDENHIRE: Sid, you are out.

RON GARDENHIRE: Picking Eric for game 4? We have been trying to get Eric, before he got hurt, hurt his knee, he was rolling pretty good. This is very important for Eric and our baseball team. We wanted a left-hander in the rotation and we wanted to make sure Eric had some starts there at the end in Detroit where he went out and he was throwing very well and then it got rained out, and then he came back his next outing and he finally had a really good outing where he threw six or seven innings, I think it was, and was pumping the ball pretty good close to 100 pitches, and then his last inning he had 100 pitches, and I wanted him to have the ball, left-hander in this series, and he has worked very hard to get that ball and I have a lot of confidence in him.

RON GARDENHIRE: No, I wish him continued success on losing baseballs, honestly. You know what, you have got to play wherever you are at. We were out in Oakland and they had a tough field out there. You just got to play baseball. We know this is not the perfect baseball setting with a roof like it is, but it's been that way as long as we have been in here, we have won a couple of world championships in here, we deal with it, we just get to deal with it a little more than them, but we don't get to see that high blue sky they have out there, and we are just trying to play some baseball and, hopefully, the roof won't come into play, hopefully everybody will see the balls, nothing fluky will happen, but if it does happen, I really hope it happens to them.

RON GARDENHIRE: No, I haven't done anything like that. I have left my players alone. They don't need me to be pulling lobsters on them. They are doing fine. They do enough of that on their own, Sid, and we are just trying to have some fun and enjoy this. Not very many teams are having this opportunity. We are trying to have some fun and play some baseball, and I can't think of anyplace I would rather be right now than in the Metrodome getting ready to play in front of our fans in the first playoff game in 11 years.

RON GARDENHIRE: I think our ball club is -- I think they are enjoying it. You know, you can see a little nerves. I think there is a little anxiety built up in there today. We have tried to relax them, had a little meeting, told them this is all about baseball, you are going to be dealing with a lot of things right now, but once the game starts we have to key down, play the game we have been playing all year, play hard, play for nine innings, take our chances, and when the game is over, win or lose, we will walk with our heads up. That's the way we have always played, go in, play the game as hard as you can and let the chips fall where they fall, but this is a lot of fun for us.

RON GARDENHIRE: Sure, that's exactly right. We know that the only thing that we can control is our own baseball team, we can't control what the Oakland A's do in here, we can only control our baseball team, my baseball team. And we have talked to them. We just want them to relax, enjoy this, have some fun, play the game the right way the catch the ball, Rick Reed goes out throws the ball over the plate, that's what we do best, and so we have had conversations about that. I did again earlier before I came down here. We understand what we have to do, now it's just about going out and executing.

RON GARDENHIRE: I try not to think in the negatives that somebody is going to falter and have to go to them, I try to think in the positives. I think it's a bonus to have a Lohsie down there in case we do have problems, but we try to think in the positive and Kyle Lohse is a very deserving pitcher on this team, he has carried us a good part of this year and done so well, and it is nice to know I can get him up, like I did in game 2, I didn't want to bring him in in the middle of the (inaudible), but I got him in a couple innings and he threw the ball very well, just like I thought he would.