NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 3, 2002

Chuck Finley

CHUCK FINLEY: Well, what happened was after that inning where I ran the bases, my hand started cramping up. My index finger kind of started shutting down toward my palm. I couldn't get it to relax. When I was facing that first batter, after every pitch, it would kind of lock down. I would try to move it back up. No, it was fine. It was cramping. I couldn't get it out of there.

CHUCK FINLEY: I don't know if I was out there running and it got to a point in the game where I might have started to fatigue. I know when I came in from standing on the bases, my hand started cramping up. I went out there, wasn't in any pain or anything, but every time I would relax, my finger would shut down. When I would throw a pitch, it would do the same thing. I felt at that point, I brought the trainers out, they might be able to massage it or loosen it up. Tony was going to take me out if somebody got on anyway. That was a smart move.

CHUCK FINLEY: Well, I started getting all my pitches over. As I got strikes on guys, I was able to expand the zone and keep a lot of my pitches below the hitting zone. I was throwing them over the middle of the plate. They were kind of dropping down after that. Started mixing in my curve ball a little more, started throwing my fast ball in more. I just kind of got into a little bit of rhythm the third and fourth inning. I know the first couple innings, my pitch count was up there. After that, I kind of got some quick outs which kind of helped me out. One of those games where the longer I stayed out there, seemed like the better my rhythm progressed through the game. That's what I really needed to do.

CHUCK FINLEY: If you would have told me we were going to put 12 runs up against a game that Randy Johnson pitched, I would be very surprised. I would be pleased, but I would be surprised. I thought that was a little bit of an extreme. I knew today's game was going to be the type of game where I didn't think that type of run production would exist. You know, this team, the whole year, most of the time that I've been here, we've been able to, you know, if you want to slug it out, we'll slug it out with you. Two-to-one, three-to-one, we'll do that, too. Our team has been able to adjust their style of play, the way we play. We seem to answer the question every night it's presented to us about, You want to pitch well, one or two runs will get it, or slug it out. To answer your question, a split would have been good for us. Obviously us coming out of here 2-0 looks very, very good. But going back to St. Louis and playing two games at Busch, it's going to be very exciting for us. We're in a good position, where we want to be. This is what we dream of doing, coming out here, 2-0. 1-1 would have been good, but 2-0 is very exciting for our team.

CHUCK FINLEY: I felt that was -- for us to come back and regain the lead after Scotty got hurt, we had a little bit of an emotional letdown because he didn't look very well when he came off the field. We came back and Edgar Renteria, who has been doing huge things for us ever since I've been here, and Miguel Cairo has been getting clutch base hits, we pushed that run across. It seems like that was going to be a big, huge part of our game. When bring the back of the bullpen in with Isringhausen, it's pretty much lights out with him. The emotions were very high. I mean, the bench is as high strung as I've seen it in quite a while in this type of atmosphere. We persevered and poured it out. It was going to come down to one or two mistakes. Whoever made them was going to lose the game. Fortunately enough, we didn't make quite as many as they did.