AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 13, 2001

Charlie Manuel

CHARLIE MANUEL: No. The best game I ever managed was when we came back and beat them in the season when they had us down by 12 runs. The reason was because we didn't have any players left and I had to leave the game alone. So that's the best game I managed. (Laughter.)

CHARLIE MANUEL: When he walked Martinez, I wanted Olerud hitting because I thought Edgar running and Olerud batting, there was a chance for a double-play and also, I knew Buhner was behind him who could hit the ball out of the ballpark, but I had faith in C.C., that he was going to get down and throw strikes and once he walked Olerud it was a concern of mine. But after that he beared down and got Wilson and Buhner out with some real good pitching.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I thought when we came back and got two runs, I thought that kind of opened it up for C.C.; i think he settled in. I told you guys, the first inning was going to be important to him. I think actually, when he got off the first inning, I think that his adrenaline was going and he was really pumped up in the game, and I think that he kind of got behind. After that, once he settled in, he was fine.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Well, you people have been asking me all the time, when are we going to hit and I kept telling you, maybe it was today. Like I said, we come out -- Omar had a good game today. He hit the ball consistently hard. Had a big game for us in the top of our lineup and the middle of our lineup was good. I thought we had consistent hitting. The biggest part about the game was the fact that we didn't let up and we got two runs and two runs and four. I think that was the big difference in the game; we stayed on them.

CHARLIE MANUEL: When we lost to Boston, I remember it well, it seemed like the next day we come out, the fact that Boston scored 23 runs, it seemed like their hitting carried over into the next day. It didn't matter who we ran out there, they were hitting. Hopefully we'll go out tomorrow like that. At the same time, Garcia is pitching, and I have a lot of respect for him. He's a top-notch pitcher. We've got to play a good game to beat him.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Today, the difference is like in their ballpark, when the sun is shining a lot, especially when it is bright, a lot of times we get a shadow on the infield that will run halfway from the batter's box, from the hitter out toward the mound. Today, like it was cloudy enough where it covered the field. I felt like our players could see better. Any time the sun is shining and you're like either behind the mound or up in front of it, as a hitter, it's hard to read the spin of the ball and also the speed of the ball. I think that's the trouble most of the hitters were having in Seattle. When you see our relief pitchers come in and start striking people out, or basically their pitchers coming in and using all fastballs to strike people out, that's a good sign that they are not seeing the ball real good. Today it didn't happen because it was more cloudy and it kind of covered the field, so I don't think it bothered either team today.

CHARLIE MANUEL: We've got one more game to win. I'm the kind of person, and I tell our players all the time we're going to come out and play as good as we possibly can tomorrow. Do we want to win? You bet your butt we do. But at the same time, we want to play basically like the way we are capable of playing. We didn't want to get too high. We don't want to get too low. We don't want to get too up and things like that. We want to keep an even keel and play our game and stay relaxed, swing the bats like we're supposed to and pitch like we can. Do we want to end it? Of course. But at the same time, we have one more game to win and until we win it, I guess that's what we can enjoy or have fun or whatever.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I think defensively, they had a bad game. I've seen them play this year and they are much better than that. They did make some mistakes today, but at the same time, I do not look for those mistakes tomorrow because they have been a consistent team all year long. They won 116 games, I followed them a lot more than you people probably think I did and at the same time I know their ballclub pretty good and today was not a good day for them defensively. They are better than that.

CHARLIE MANUEL: We hit the ball. Also we hit in situations -- like we moved our runners and we hit the ball hard, we hit the ball to all fields and things fell for us and things went our way. We hit the ball out of our ballpark. We had a combination of about everything you could throw up there. I was very proud of our hitting today. I told Clarence Jones that I was the hitting instructor today, not him. (Laughter.)