AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 14, 2001

Lou Piniella

LOU PINIELLA: You know, I didn't have any wine last night. I had one Grey Goose Martini, and that was it all night.

LOU PINIELLA: We made a couple little changes, but nothing all that radical. We didn't have that many changes. I thought about hitting Ichiro third, that was what I was alluding to the other day, but we thought about it. We went with this lineup all year, and we just changed it around just a little bit, but, you know, Danny has caught Garcia every time this year. We've got Mark that really can't throw. So, we really didn't have that many options, but we did move Edgar into the third hole, moved Boone into the fourth hole and Javier is hitting sixth, so we changed it around as much as we could to give it a different look, but stayed as constant as we possibly could.

LOU PINIELLA: Just shake it up a little bit. We've struggled. I think two through five, I was just told by a couple of the ESPN people, that we are 3 for 41. I didn't realize that. So we need to hit the ball a little better.

LOU PINIELLA: I was planning on hitting McLemore one, Javier two, and Ichiro three.

LOU PINIELLA: Yeah, there's good chemistry usually. There's a talent. And then there's that desire to win. I think they all have that in common. Those are constants.

LOU PINIELLA: No, not really. You know, a loss is a loss. You don't want to go out there and play the way we did and get beat, but, look, let's get it out of the way. We've been able to bounce back before. I think we'll bounce back today and play a good baseball game and win. Like I told the people from Fox, we've got to take that long ride back to Seattle, so we might as well make Cleveland take the same plane ride. We've got our bullpen. Our short people are nice and rested. If we had to play a 12- or 13-inning game yesterday and lost it, we would have been in worse shape. Yesterday was not a good game for us, obviously. But it's one out of hopefully five.

LOU PINIELLA: Yeah, we offered him the opportunity, but he preferred to just travel with us.

LOU PINIELLA: No, not at all. I said that coming in. We've had a great season. Hopefully, we can continue in post-season, but if not, listen, 116 wins, that's only been done once before. It's not going to diminish at all from -- you know, unless you win the World Series, we're going to get asked that question every time, whether it's this round, the next round or the last round. No, it's different. Our kids have played hard. They have played well all year. They played great all year, actually. You know, we got banged up at the wrong time for different reasons. Now we need to put together two good ballgames and go on to the next round.

LOU PINIELLA: Well, this is a must-win game. (Laughter.)

LOU PINIELLA: Well, playoffs are a different animal than the regular season. The teams that you are competing against are obviously better. They have got their pitching set up the way they want to. But I tell you what we're going to go out and play hard today. We're going to go out and do the best we can. We've done that all year. If we can swing the bats like we did all year and we get six good innings from Freddy, we'll take this thing back to Seattle. I mean, that's obviously what we are going to try to do. We can't do any more than that.

LOU PINIELLA: He did a good job, plus it gives me another left hand bat in the line up, and he's a switch-hitter. He can hit second in the lineup against left-hand pitching and hit the ball very well and get us deeper into the lineup. But you can't -- those things happen. Whether it's an injury, whether it's an illness for a disease, you've just got to go play through it, and hopefully we will.

LOU PINIELLA: No, I tell you what, we've got to hit his fastball. He threw, I think, less than ten percent breaking pitches the first playoff game. You know, hopefully he'll get behind our hitters and walk a few people and let us put the game in motion a little more. I think that's really the secret for us. Outside of the fact that we do need to swing the bat better. We faced him before. He competes. He throws hard. We beat him twice during the season, but they were very low-scoring ballgames both times. One of them was 2-1, but I don't remember the other score -- 4-1? We'll take either today.

LOU PINIELLA: That would help Cleveland more than us. We really don't want rain delays. Our short people are really what's fresh in the bullpen and we don't have as many innings as our bullpen to eat up as Cleveland could, plus they carried 11 pitchers. With the injuries that we had coming in, it necessitated that we carry the extra player. We were not sure if Bell was going to be able to make it. We had to carry the young shortstop to get a position backup. So we carried 10 and they carried 11. So if there is a rain delay and we lose Garcia, that's in Cleveland's favor. They have got more innings out of the bullpen than we do.

LOU PINIELLA: No. This is a loose bunch. Even going in our clubhouse now, these guys will be ready to play today.

LOU PINIELLA: (Laughter.) They will be ready to play. They really are. Yesterday was yesterday. Today is a new ballgame, and whether you lose 1-0 or 17-2, it's one game and it's out of the way. What you've got to do is win three out of the five. And that's what we are going to hope to accomplish here over the next two days.

LOU PINIELLA: We're not going to have any pressure. It's a veteran team. You can only do what you can do. Like I said yesterday, our objective is to come in here today and win and take this thing back to Seattle. We're going to take that long airplane trip regardless back to Seattle. We want Cleveland to join us along for the ride. At the same time, what's strange about today is this is the first day that I've come to the ballpark all year, possibly, not putting the uniform on any more, and that's the strangeness about it. Outside of that, we're going to go out and do the best we can. I said that coming into the series. Cleveland was a good ballclub; that they were experienced in the playoffs and it was going to be a much tougher situation for us than the White Sox series last year in the first round because they had not been there. And so for far, it's proven that way, but, you know, again, we've got two games to get this thing back on track. We've been able to do it all year when we needed to. We've had that big lead all year, but still, there was a sense of purpose. There still is. These guys want to go out there and win this series, and we're going to do the best we can, and that's all we can do. We can't do anymore. And whatever happens, I'm going to be proud of this team. What we've done during the season has been amazing, and unless you win the World Series -- the unfortunate thing about baseball is, or any sport, is that no matter how well you do, unless you win the final prize, you're going to feel disappointment. So let's hope we don't feel disappointment here after this first round.

LOU PINIELLA: I would think that the advantage would shift right back to us. You know they split at home. Our objective really was to come in here and split. Realistically we wanted to split, we would have hoped for two; well, we didn't get two so now we need to split and then it goes back to our advantage. We've got Moyer who has pitched well against them, we are at home, so it certainly shifts back to our advantage. But again, we've got to get through today's obstacle first.

LOU PINIELLA: Well, it doesn't give the teams much rest. You know, the amazing thing about the way this thing was put together is we had the day off in between in Seattle, and we had the travel day and now the most important game, assuming it goes to that, you're going to play with very short rest. But it's the same for both teams. Same for both teams.