MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v DIAMONDBACKS

October 28, 2001

Bob Brenly

BOB BRENLY: Lineup today is Womack at shortstop, Counsell at second, Gonzales in left field, Sanders in right field, Danny Bautista playing center, Matt Williams at third base, Mark Grace at first and Damian Miller catching Randy Johnson.

BOB BRENLY: I think first and foremost, he has a burning passion to play this game. This guy keeps himself in better shape than most 22-year-olds I know. He lives for that opportunity to get the ball and go out there and compete. Whatever the situation may be, and I think that has sustained him very well throughout his career.

BOB BRENLY: Well, he had an awesome year this year, no question about that. He's had an awesome career. He's a great big-game pitcher. He's very much a competitor, like every pitcher we see this time of year, but maybe to an extreme, he's a competitor. You know when you go up against Roger Clemens that he is going to be tough all the time and there are those days where he is tougher than tough, when he's got everything working, he's got his command and he gets into a good rhythm out there on the mound, he can be very tough to breakthrough against. Much like when Schilling gets into a good rhythm or RJ or any good pitcher, you give them an opportunity to get comfortable on the mound and find that happy zone, it can be tough to score runs against them.

BOB BRENLY: Earplugs might be a good place to start. We know it's going to be loud. We know it's going to be hostile. We know that the Yankee fans are the most rabid fans in the world. They prove that every year at this time. But we'll go through our usual preparation that we go through in any ballpark, checking the bounces, checking the angles, checking the ricochet off the fences and backstop. Checking the foul lines to see which way the ball rolls and throughout the course of our work-out on Monday, we'll watch the flight of fly balls, check the lights, do all of the things you normally do in any ballpark.

BOB BRENLY: He's available to pitch Game 4, as I've said all along, that he has indicated a desire, that if we need him to, he can pitch on three days' rest. Certainly, that's a very attractive option. But throughout this whole thing, we have maintained that ideally, we will just continue to roll with our four-man rotation the way it is. I don't think we can really make a decision right now as to what's going to happen in Game 4. We're just worried about Game 2 right now and we'll adjust on the fly as we have to.

BOB BRENLY: The fact that he is a lefty entered into it, the fact that that allowed us to use Danny Batista out of the bullpen for games one and two entered into it. But Brian Anderson is a very calm, cool and collected pitcher. He does not get rattled. I'm not sure why he does not recognize the magnitude sometimes of the games he's pitching in but he does not seem to be phased by the situation or the magnitude of the ballgame. I'm sure that Brian will draw on his experience from past post-seasons, when he pitched very well, and we expect a good game out of him in Game 3.

BOB BRENLY: I'll tell you, I could not be happier. As proud as I am of my players and the way they have conducted themselves this year I could not be prouder of the coaching staff. Starting with Eddie Rodriguez, somewhat of an unknown in the mix, came in here and he is our Jack-of-all-trades. He is the guy that will do all of the jobs that nobody else wants to do and do them with a smile on his face and do them very, very well. Chris Spier was a former teammate of mine, a guy that I used to call for life decisions, not just baseball decisions. I respected his opinion on things so much I used to call him about family matters. Bob Melvin and I were cut out of the same cloth, we both played for Roger Craig. We think alike sometimes which is scary, and for my money he's one of the most valuable guys on our staff. Glenn Sherlock, another guy, working with the young, guys and we have taken them in and made them better than they were when we got them; and Damian Miller is a case in point. Murphy, who was on staff last year as a first base coach took over as a hitting coach this year has done a remarkable job with a veteran ballclub, and that's always the easiest thing to do when you have guys who are very established and set in their ways to come in here and work with a team like that but Murphy has done an outstanding job especially with the mental part of hitting, being prepared mentally before you go up to the plate. Welch, another rookie, his first assignment as a big league coach has come in and given us exactly what we wanted. He is not a big nuts and bolts mechanics guy, but he is a very positive influence on our staff, especially the younger pitchers. He's really made a bond with a lot of the younger pitchers and I give him a lot of the credit for Miguel Batista's improvement this year. Any manager will tell you that you rely heavily on your coaches, and I probably do so more than most managers could.

BOB BRENLY: He may not speak a lot of English but he understands a lot of English, he's a lot sharper than I think people realize and we really have not had communication problems with him. There are times that he'll smile and nod his head and I'm not sure if he's listening to me, but I think he understands what I'm saying, if you get my drift. Over the course of this season he has really matured. We lose sight of the fact that this kid is only 22 years old and thrown into the tail end of ballgames, very crucial ballgames down the stretch and in the post-season, and his poise and demeanor seems to have gotten better as we have gotten deeper and deeper into the post-season. He comes to me every day and says that he can throw two or three innings, whatever I need and he wants to be the guy out there on the mound and I think that's just a magnificent improvement over where he was last year at this time or even in the first half of the season. His poise has just blossomed here late in the season.

BOB BRENLY: Well, that's the impression I got, yeah. Those guys in the other clubhouse have been through this many, many times and I'm sure that in some respect they take the same attitude we do. You just take each game on it's own merit. It was nice to win that ballgame last night and we were excited for our fans and excited for our players but we understand that we have got to go back out and do it again tonight, and that's the attitude that has served us so well throughout the course of the regular season and I don't see any reason to change now and I'm sure they use that same philosophy. You just have to play them as one at a time as boring as that sounds, that's what works in this game.

BOB BRENLY: No. He is another one of those guys that keeps himself in such tremendous physical condition, he has been stretched out in his side sessions and the workouts that we had between the ends of the League championship Series and the World Series, we extended his pitch count to get him to a point where I'm very comfortable now that we can work him as deep into the game as we need him to.

BOB BRENLY: You always have concerns, but I think that Major League Baseball and the various ballclubs where we have been this post-season have just done a tremendous job making sure that the players and the families are all going to be taken care of. I mean, you just have to put your trust in their hands. That's what they do best. They are the specialists, they are the experts. You have all seen the dogs sniffing around and a lot of uniformed personnel, a lot of non-uniformed personnel. I am just putting a lot of trust in the people whose job it is to make sure that the fans and the players and everybody is safe and I'm sure that they will do a fine job.

BOB BRENLY: I think any time you send a pitcher out to the mound in a World Series, it's a gamble, but it's a gamble I'm willing to take. I think the way he pitched out of the bullpen towards the end of the season showed me that physically, mechanically, mentally, everything I needed to see, I saw out of Brian pitching out of the bullpen. I mean, I don't worry about BA. I know he will be ready to go and I know physically he will be ready to go as deep in the game as we need him to.