NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS v CARDINALS

October 11, 2000

Mike Hampton

MIKE HAMPTON: It wasn't pretty, but it worked. I didn't have the greatest stuff. My command wasn't as good early as I would have liked it to have been; as I was later. I felt as the game went on and the game progressed I got a little bit more comfortable.

MIKE HAMPTON: As good as this team is, as good as the Cardinals are, they never let you breathe. You have got guys coming at you from all angles. It is a tough chore. It is a tough job to face a lineup as good as theirs. But, yeah, when you get guys on base, I mean, you know, I was continuously trying to make that one pitch to get me out of it. Just kept working at it, I wasn't going to give in. I wasn't going to give them a good pitch to hit. I was going to stay with my strengths and keep the ball down and try to get a key groundball when I needed it.

MIKE HAMPTON: I didn't breathe, I will tell you that. I thought if I was going to breathe, it might have pushed the ball over the fence, but Benny gave me a pretty good deke. I just followed it the whole way. I just wanted that ball to come down so bad. Luckily the park held it.

MIKE HAMPTON: I wasn't upset with my stuff in the Giants series, but the outcome definitely wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted to do my part and I -- just like everybody else, just wanted to do our part and help this team win. I didn't do that in the first series and I really wanted to concentrate and focus on being one of those guys who was a contributor instead of a liability and really go out there and prove a little something.

MIKE HAMPTON: Well, with him in the lineup in general, is enough to put a fear in opposing pitchers just because he is so talented and at any time given time he could leave the park or come up with a big hit - in that aspect of the game, being an opposing pitcher. But I am very comfortable with him behind the plate. He caught a great game. A really big pitch was the curve ball, 2-2 curve ball to Edmonds and it really wasn't in my mind, but once he put that signal down I said: Man, that will work. That would be a good pitch if I could get this thing down. I was able to make the good pitch. It is nice to have him back there. He is into the game. It was great tonight.

MIKE HAMPTON: I think in the -- probably in the 5th inning I guess -- the strikeout in the 5th inning. We have been throwing him cutters away and sinkers away and an occasional fastball in, and he hadn't seen the breaking ball yet. I felt pretty comfortable with it. It just wasn't in my thought process. Once he put the signal down, I thought that was a pitch, if I could get it where I needed to.

MIKE HAMPTON: Not really. There was a couple of times that, you know, I had a gut instinct on a pitch that if I made it, I felt, that is just it. He caught me about 35 times now so we are pretty familiar with each other.

MIKE HAMPTON: Yeah.