AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 9, 2001

Lou Piniella

LOU PINIELLA: Jamie has pitched very well the second half of this year, won 20 ballgames for us. He's really pitched as well as anybody in baseball, since the All-Star Game. So we'll feel confident that he'll go out and pitch a good ballgame for us tomorrow and give us an opportunity to win.

LOU PINIELLA: That's a good question. I don't know that. Put it this way: I think if he gets on base, he'll have a chance to steal more than one in this series.

LOU PINIELLA: It is a new season. And we had a tremendous season. And now what we need to do is hopefully follow it up with a tremendous postseason. Everybody is 0-0 here, and anybody is capable of winning in this Final 8. American League has four quality teams. And whomever wins will represent the American League well. But for us it's -- we're 0-0, just like everybody else.

LOU PINIELLA: Jamie basically pitches the same against everybody. He's got a couple of different fastballs. He's got a curveball, different speeds off his change-up. I think he's even developed the splitfinger, here in September. But depending on who the hitters are, he might vary somewhat, but invariably his game is to keep people off balance. One of the things that makes him really good is the fact that his control is usually razor sharp and he doesn't walk many hitters, you've got to hit him to beat him. And against Cleveland he's had success this year. I guess you can talk to the Cleveland hitters better than I, but this is a good ballclub we're playing here, and we're going to have to pitch well against them, and certainly Jamie is going to have to do his part.

LOU PINIELLA: I haven't really seen anything too crazy. He's got 240 some hits in 162 games. He played a heck of a right field. He's given us speed. He's got a great throwing arm. He's just a tremendous all around player. But he's very disciplined. He plays hard. You know, he's been a pleasure to have on the baseball team. It's one of the main reasons that we've been able to do what we've done.

LOU PINIELLA: It's good. I put his name in the line-up and basically I let him play (laughter.)

LOU PINIELLA: We'd rather play two days in a row, obviously. I think Cleveland would say the same thing. Once you get started -- it would have been nicer to play Tuesday and Wednesday, travel day Thursday, play Friday and Saturday. And then if they wanted a travel day Sunday, and finish it up Monday, if it goes five games, fine. I think it detracts a little bit having that pause in the middle, after the first game. Everybody is ready to play now.

LOU PINIELLA: Yeah, Chuck has had success against our team. He competes. He's been a really nice pitcher for a long time at the Major League level. Cleveland has got pretty nice starting pitchers against us. We haven't seen Sabathia, but -- yeah, we've got to go out there and swing the bats against these guys.