AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 11, 2001

Charlie Manuel

CHARLIE MANUEL: Basically what happened was -- what happened on him was just what we didn't want to have happen. He made two mistakes. The two home runs were mistakes. And then we fell behind 4-0. And after that, Moyer settled in, and pitched a good game. He handled us. That's basically the way -- he's pitched against us three times now, and basically pitched the same kind of game.

CHARLIE MANUEL: The first game we played here we won, and this one we lost. And right now I look at it, it goes down to the best 2 out of 3. We're going home for two games. So do I like our position? Yeah, I like it better -- it's a heck of a lot better than being 0-2. And we're going home and even. We have to win two out of three. And that's basically what it comes down to.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Yeah, I think the first inning he was trying -- he had trouble with his command. He made two mistakes, especially the one on Cameron. He was ahead of him on the count and he made a bad pitch. And he paid for it. Edgar Martinez got the ball up and out over the plate. And Boone -- he was behind in the count, 3-1, pitch up the middle, and he was behind in the count. So therefore he was struggling to get his command the first inning.

CHARLIE MANUEL: He might have been, I don't know. You'd probably have to ask him. But what I saw was the fact he was having trouble locating the ball. And like I said, he made some mistakes.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Change of speeds. He's got four pitches, and the change of speeds, and he never throws the same velocity. If he throws a fastball, it might be 83, and then he might show one at 88. His change-up, too. He might change-up one at 76, and then one at 73. He just changes speeds on all his pitches. And at the same time, he has tremendous command, uses both sides of the plate, and he keeps you off balance. And today we were trying to hit some balls to right field, but it wasn't working out for us.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Yeah, right now we're not hitting the ball, like the top of our line-up, and even in the middle is not hitting the ball good right now. Yeah, that concerns me a little bit. But at the same time we have guys that are veteran hitters, and they can bounce back day-to-day. Baseball is a day-to-day thing. Just because that part of our line-up didn't hit today or yesterday, like if we go two or three days and not hit, that's baseball. They will hit. They have hit. And right now is the time for us to hit, don't get me wrong.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I don't know, that's kind of like saying -- ask him did he have the jitters. I don't know. You'll have to ask him. Basically what I saw was the fact that he was -- he got off slow in the game, he was having a hard time throwing strikes, and he had trouble with his command and made some mistakes, and we paid early for them.

CHARLIE MANUEL: No, because I saw him pitch on three days rest, and better on three days rest than I felt like when he was in his regular turn. And he just went 5 innings today, so therefore he didn't throw all that many pitches. So I think he'll be ready.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I think Piniella uses the starters a lot like we do. Once they go through at least 6 innings, try to get them through 7, but it kind of turns the game over to the bullpen. And that's basically what we do. And I don't see -- you're going to see, like back in the bullpen, probably just about every one of these games.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I thought Riske was throwing hard, he was striking everybody out, so what can I say bad about him?

CHARLIE MANUEL: No, not necessarily. I mean that's part of it. I look at their bullpen, and they're definitely strong. And during the season it's played up big. But I look at their starters, if you look at Garcia and Moyer and they've got Abbott and Sele and all those guys. And they've got the young kid, too, who didn't make the roster. But at the same time all these guys had a lot of wins. And they had to be going somewhere, they had to be going more than 5 innings to get a win. They probably had a very balanced staff, the more I think about it.