AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 12, 2001

Lou Piniella

LOU PINIELLA: We don't have any concerns. We were looking at his tape for the past half hour, 45 minutes just so our hitters could get familiar with him as far as possible. But we know he's got good stuff. He's got a good arm and he's had a very successful year, 17-5; that speaks for itself. So, we've got a challenge tomorrow against him.

LOU PINIELLA: I don't know. He hasn't faced us, either. So, I would think the pitcher has a little bit of an advantage, though.

LOU PINIELLA: Well, you know, Colon threw the ball very, very well. Shadows or no shadows. Moyer, with the offspeed pitches kept their hitters off timing. But at the same time, it's important to see the ball as well as possible to be able to hit it. So it probably had some effect on the hitters.

LOU PINIELLA: His last start was so-so. But prior to that, I thought he pitched exceedingly well. Good, crisp fastball to both sides of the plate. Used his changeup to keep hitters honest, and at the same time, had a really good curveball. But I expect Aaron to go out there and pitch well for us. He competes very well and he's got the experience.

LOU PINIELLA: It's a different game. This park here is a little more conducive to power. But at the same time, we hit three home runs yesterday that scored all of our runs via the home run ball. But this is a good hitters ballpark. The background is good. If the wind is not blowing in, the ball carries very well here.

LOU PINIELLA: We were loose. We're going to be loose throughout this thing. That's not a concern at all. But getting the crowd into the game, with 48,000 people in Seattle, was important. Scoring those four runs definitely got the crowd in the ballgame there after the first inning, and it really helps the home team.

LOU PINIELLA: Jay is going to start in left field. We might hit him fifth in the lineup, I'm not sure, and move Olerud to the sixth spot.

LOU PINIELLA: We didn't have many options as far as our roster was concerned -- I'm talking about the 14. The pitching we did have some decisions to make and we decided to keep Halama as a long lefty, as opposed to Pineiro or Franklin. That was the biggest decision we had to make. But once we lost Guillen, it dictated we keep a backup infielder in Vazquez, and really, outside of that, there weren't many decisions to be made. We didn't call up that many people in September, so that decision wasn't tough.

LOU PINIELLA: He's got a good changeup and he's got a real nice breaking ball. You've just got to lay off of it. He throws the ball -- I saw where he throws a lot of the balls out of the strike zone with it, and obviously, if you lay off of it, much the better. He's a good pitcher.

LOU PINIELLA: When you get to this caliber of baseball, the top eight teams, you've had success on the road. So I think it negates the advantage somewhat. You know, we've been a real good road team. I think we won 59 games on the road. You look at Cleveland's record, they can win on the road. You don't get to this point if you're really, really struggling on the road. It's not as much of an advantage as you would think.

LOU PINIELLA: A little more urgency, as far as winning ballgames early in the series. I said that a five-game series, there's really very little margin for error, and that's really the case. Tomorrow's game is a very pivotal game for both sides. That third game is an important one. So whoever wins this ballgame tomorrow certainly has a distinct advantage.

LOU PINIELLA: That was in '95.

LOU PINIELLA: It's two good ballclubs, and then the competition level rises, the adrenaline rises. You tend to play good baseball against good teams. For a while, Cleveland held the upper hand as far as the rivalry was concerned, but it's evened out a heck of a lot more here over the past few years.

LOU PINIELLA: We knew they were a good ballclub coming in, their experience, they have been to this type of situation many times before and they are not going to rattle. We knew that Cleveland was a good club coming in, and we still feel the same way. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get a good game from Sele and we'll score some runs and get the edge on this series.

LOU PINIELLA: Depends on whether you are a fastball hitter or an offspeed hitter. If you have a lot of good fastball hitters, it's probably easier to face a fastball pitcher, and if you don't, then the reverse is the case. But, yeah, you've still got to make the pitcher throw the ball over the plate. That's important. You've got to get good pitches to hit, and when you get your pitch, you can't foul it off. You've got to hit it hard.

LOU PINIELLA: Actually he's a real good offspeed hitter. He can hit the fastball, but why give a scouting report here, right? (Laughter.)

LOU PINIELLA: That was the first time my parents bought a TV, I was a big fan of this team. We rested our team about as well as we possibly could the whole month of September. Actually we started to rest our team around the mid-season. We left a regular out of the lineup every day. In September, we played different variations of lineups. About the only guy that I didn't rest as well as I probably could have was Boony and he wanted to go for the RBI title and we gave him that opportunity and he did win the RBI title. But outside of that, our club is pretty well rested. We rested our team about as well as we could.

LOU PINIELLA: Well, the mental aspect of it, I don't know. You've got to stay sharp. You've got to stay focused. We've got a veteran ballclub in a lot of ways, the same way that Cleveland does. It's easy to say you are going to turn it on, but it's not as easy to do. Obviously, for an older ballclub or a more experienced ballclub, the chore is a little easier. But, you know we got ourselves in position. We were not trying to win 116 games or whatever the number was. But we got ourselves in position in the Anaheim series where we won two in a row and got it to 113, and we were that close, so we said, "Let's take a shot at it." But at the same time, we had rookies playing. We had two pitchers that started ballgames that were not with us the whole year. We played two or three players from our AAA roster every day. Again the only guy that I really didn't get out of there was our second baseman, and the rest of the ballclub, if you look at our lineups, everybody played, and we rested people on an every-night occurrence. The problem here is -- not the problem, but, you know, we are really into the second week of playoffs now. This is October 9th, 10th; it's a long season. It starts back in the middle of February. This thing is going to end probably, what, around the 1st of November, whoever gets that far. It's a long baseball season.

LOU PINIELLA: Well, we've hit -- against left-handed pitching all year we've basically hit our shortstop, Carlos Guillen in the second hole and hit Mike fifth or sixth. Mike gives us speed and he gives us power. I like him both second and sixth, or fifth, against left-handed pitching. What you guys will have fun with is Sunday's game with Colon when we bring our lineup out. I'll have a lot of questions to answer then. (Smiles).

LOU PINIELLA: Well, remember, we rely on solid pitching and good defense, and you can take that anywhere and hang your hat with it. At the same time, the road parks, or the parks on the road, are a little more conducive to a little more power, and we can still run, we can still do the things that we do at home, but it adds a little more power to the ingredients of our lineup and I think that's why. It starts with good pitching and good defense. That, you can take anywhere. So when you look at our baseball team, we've got to pitch and catch. If we pitch and catch, we've got a chance to win a ballgame.