NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 2, 2002

Dave Duncan

DAVE DUNCAN: Always had a lot of respect for him across the field. He was a great competitor. You could tell he went about his business in a very professional way. When the time came that we were looking around for pitchers, and his name was mentioned, he got my attention for sure. He certainly got Tony's attention. Coming to our ballclub, I think that everything that I thought about him across the field was true. He goes about his business in a very professional way. He prepares in a very professional way. When he goes out to the mound to pitch, he competes at a hundred percent every time. He hasn't one time not been ready to give everything that he was capable of giving. So I think we were very fortunate to add him to our staff.

DAVE DUNCAN: I think he probably was at that particular time thought of more as a guy that would come out and overpower you. Now I think he's more of the type of pitcher that's going to use location and change of speed to control the game.

DAVE DUNCAN: Well, he's improved every day. Today he said he feels great. He wants to get on the mound and throw a bullpen today. I don't expect there's going to be any problem with him making his start on Saturday.

DAVE DUNCAN: I think when we went into spring training, we felt that we had an overabundance of pitching. I mean, there was a number of times that I was asked a question, "What are you guys going to do with all this pitching? How are you going to filter it out and come up with a 12-man pitching staff?" I said, "It's funny how those things take care of themselves." It certainly did that. The beginning of the season, I mean, we started right from the beginning having problems. We had some real freak injuries, non-pitching related injuries, that took some major players out of our rotation, off of our pitching staff. You know, over the course of the years, I don't think there's been but maybe one or two years where there hasn't been a period of time that you're dealing with problems, personnel problems, because of injury or something. The difference this year is that we basically, up until the first of September, dealt with continual problems with losing personnel to different things. It was like just that's the way the season is. The only I think shocking time was really in the beginning of the season, trying to figure out exactly what we were going to do then, because it involved using people that we really didn't know a lot about. Travis Smith, Josh Pearce, Jason Simontacchi, people like that, that we didn't have much of a background with. That was really the only difficult time. The rest of it is just you're dealing with the hand that you're dealt. In Darryl's case, I think that was a very emotionally straining, draining period of time that the entire team went through. I think it was a distraction that took a lot of strength to not let affect you to the point that the season would get away from you. I think the team, as a group, helped each other deal with the tragedy of Darryl's death. I'm sure that there's not a day goes by that each and every member of our club doesn't think about Darryl in some way. I think at this point it probably serves to strengthen our club more than anything else.

DAVE DUNCAN: I don't think there's a person in our clubhouse that thinks that the game against Curt Schilling is going to be an easy game. Curt Schilling is the type of competitor that you have to be to win the number of games that he has, to win the number of big games that he's won. We're going to have our work cut out for us for the remainder of the series. If we go five games, we're going to see Randy again, Curt twice, and Batista, who is no day at the beach. By no means do we think in any way that this is going to be an easy series. And Curt Schilling, he will be a difficult opponent.

DAVE DUNCAN: I think these are brilliant additions that Walt has added to our ballclub. It seems like every time we have a need, he's able to make the right move and get the right guy for our ballclub. Fassero and White both, the experience that they have is probably the key ingredient to how they've helped us. Whenever you have a certain strength, and you're looking to add strength, guys like Fassero and White, even though they may not be those dominant, dominant pitchers, they become even stronger when they're added to a group that's strong. They're not expected to come in here and carry our ballclub. All they're expected to do is put in a piece to strengthen an already pretty decent bullpen. They've done that. Their experience has allowed them to just perform consistently. Their experience I think has enabled them to pitch in key situations, which some people would call pressure situations, and perform well in those situations. They were the right two guys out of others that might have been out there and available. They were the right two guys to add to our ballclub.