AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS v ATHLETICS

October 4, 2002

Art Howe

Barry Zito

ART HOWE: Well, I guess I can't say it in public. It was like an "Oh, you know what." Exactly what we were afraid might happen took place, because he said he didn't see it originally off the bat, and then he found it for a split instant, and he took his eyes off it, and that's all she wrote, and that's what we try to tell everybody, you have to keep your eyes on it and try to read as much as you can off the bat because it is going to reappear sometime, but we got a break on it, it just hit right in front of the the bag and kicked foul and Barry got the strike out, so it didn't hurt us.

ART HOWE: Yeah, we are very lucky. I am very lucky. I have three of them that do this on a regular basis, so Barry really pitched a heck of a game today. Like I said, we made a couple mistakes, made him have to work out of some tough jams and he did it.

BARRY ZITO: Yeah, I knew I had to battle a little bit. I was getting behind on some guys, and when that pop-up was dropped, I mean, I don't take things like that to heart because you know inside yourself whether you are going to get guys out or not, and if you let that affect you, you are not going to last very long. But, I mean, I was confident that I could still get guys out, I walked a couple guys and then got Rivas on a 2-2 change and then, you know --

BARRY ZITO: It's actually just a fastball away. Sometimes it will cut. It usually won't tail back over the plate, I don't have much of that, with the four-seamer, so, you know, sometimes if it's really on the blackaway, it will cut maybe a couple inches.

BARRY ZITO: The crowd was amazing. You know, these fans in Minnesota, they are great, you know, they came out and they supported us. I was trying to picture how it would be without the curtain out there in right, and just to see every seat full, it was great. It would be great to have that -- you know, have those fans here in Minnesota because they were very cool. And then as far as Durham's homerun, that was huge. He hit that ball pretty hard, and I think it just got by Torii and, you know, it was a really big out, first hitter of the game, and then Hatteberg follows up with the homerun and kind of took the pressure off me a little bit.

ART HOWE: You might see just one. We are going to ride the horse that got us here.

ART HOWE: Who is the question for?

ART HOWE: I really didn't get what the question was? What about the whacky pop-ups?

ART HOWE: We were just hoping that some sanity would start to prevail and some normalcy would take place. These guys are tough here, they play great baseball and they never give up, so we just have to play solid ball all the way. And we did make a couple mistakes, and normally they are going to really make you pay, but Barry did a great job of minimizing the damage.

ART HOWE: Actually, I played in Candlestick a few times, but that's about the only place I can recall balls coming down where someone was not too close.

BARRY ZITO: It's just a -- what it is, I grip my fastball really loosely, and it's happened so many times, you know, in BP when I am playing catch, and it happened two times this year in warm-ups on the mound, never in the game. I knew it was inevitable one day it would happen and, of course, it happened in the playoffs on national TV, so I am glad everyone knows that that's something I do now.

ART HOWE: I am glad we were on turf or it wouldn't have gotten across the foul line. Actually, the pitching coach and I looked at each other and we just had to laugh on that one. I am sure Barry wasn't laughing, but we were.

BARRY ZITO: No. That wasn't good.