NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 11, 2001

Luis Gonzalez

LUIS GONZALEZ: Well, I think the first two games we had great pitchers on both sides. You know, obviously with Randy and Curt and Matt Morris, and Woody Williams yesterday, they've all stepped up to the challenge and everything everybody expected, good pitching from those guys -- our ball club, we've had a lot of opportunities and we've failed to drive in some runs. So we could very easy be up 2-0, but we know we have our work cut out for us here in the next couple of games with Darryl Kile and Bud Smith going in the next couple of days.

LUIS GONZALEZ: Well, I've played with Kile in Houston, so I know he is a competitor. He gives it all he's got. When he's on, he has probably one of the best curve balls in baseball. The weather, the different circumstances we have going here, you would probably want to come out here and see normal St. Louis weather. But we're not having that, it's going to be interesting. There are going to be a lot of different factors that play into the series. I would like to say hi to all my teammates. This is the highest-rated show in Busch Stadium, I'm sure.

LUIS GONZALEZ: Yes, I think everything is magnified here, every pitch, every at-bat, I think every player is more focused. These are the final eight teams standing in all of baseball, and when you fail to come through in a key situation, it hurts that much more, so you want to do well in this and there's always a guy who steps out of nowhere and does well and then there are guys who fail. You just want to be consistent here. We're very happy to be 1-1 right now, especially with the first game. We left a lot of runners stranded on base, and then fortunately for us, one run was enough the way Curt was pitching that day. Yesterday we felt like Randy threw a great game and we weren't able to get our offense going. We have a lot of confidence, and we believe we're going to turn this thing around.

LUIS GONZALEZ: We have a lot of confidence in Batista and Albie Lopez and those guys, but when you have an opportunity to run the first two guys and Randy and Curt back out there, of course, I don't think there is any guy in all of baseball, if those guys are on your team, that wouldn't want to have those two guys take the ball for you. Whether they go out tomorrow, our club has confidence in Batista and Albie Lopez taking the ball. And it doesn't matter with our team, who's running out there, we have a quiet confidence about ourself and we have a veteran ball club. And there's no secret, we have to pick up our offense to try to generate things going for us.