AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 14, 2001

Charlie Manuel

CHARLIE MANUEL: When I went out to the mound I talked to him, I wanted to find out exactly where he was at, how he felt. He was really upbeat about it. He wanted to stay in the game. I told him, I said, "If you can, try to keep the ball down, get the ball down and away if you can, and if you get a hit, you can try to pound hard up." Actually, I think he got behind on the first pitch with a ball, then looked like he got the ball up or something and he hit the ball in the hole.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I didn't think about walking mostly. I was thinking about like where the runners were at, like with two outs, I was thinking about bringing Rincon in, but at the same time, once I walked to the mound, I was thinking, all these things were going through my mind. And I thought to myself, once I saw that he wanted to pitch and he wanted to stay out there, we had a 1-1 game. I thought, well, here is my best pitcher, the League's leading hitter, he's still throwing good and I had faith he was going to get him out.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I don't know. He was throwing balls -- he was still close to the plate. That was one reason I decided to leave him in, although he was throwing some balls, it was still around the plate and he had good stuff. Ichiro, we got the ground ball, only trouble is, it was right in the hole.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I think he becomes real dangerous, especially as he's been against us. It doesn't matter who is pitching. I think he stays back, keeps his hands up, hits the ball hard, gets the fat part of the bat on the ball. Against us, he finds a lot of holes, but that's because he hits the ball sharp and he hits the ball all over.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I haven't said anything to our team right now, but more than likely I might say something before the game tomorrow.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Just things, go get'em, whatever enters my mind.

CHARLIE MANUEL: I think I definitely didn't want to take the plane ride to Seattle, and I don't think anybody else did, but at the same time, that's just the way things worked out and that's what it came down to today. We had six real good innings and all of a sudden things started happening to us and we ended up getting beat.

CHARLIE MANUEL: Well, he's beat us three times. You guys know that. At the same time, I would still like to see us kind of get closer to the plate, try to hit more balls the other way, try to wait on him and try to get balls to the opposite field. Don't pull off him, don't swing real hard at him.