NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS v CARDINALS

October 14, 2000

Darryl Kile

DARRYL KILE: Coming in here as a visiting player, the few times I've been here, has always been a battle. They've got a good ballclub, and it's always been fun to pitch here. The fans here, you got to give them a lot of credit. They're very enthusiastic and they're very excited about their team. As a player, you have to respect that. Tomorrow I just want to go out and try to do my job as best I can.

DARRYL KILE: If you look throughout the course of the season, there's days where you have good stuff and there's days where you don't. Your job as a pitcher is to try to find a way to win. No matter if you're coming back early or you have extra rest or whatever, my job is to go out there with whatever hand I've been dealt as far as stuff-wise and try to compete and try to battle and make as many quality pitches as I can and give our guys a chance.

DARRYL KILE: Not a whole lot really. I've been a guy that throws a lot all the time, pretty much play catch every day, whether it's on three days, four days or if you have an off day or something, six days. Again, if you look at it from this perspective, my job is to go out there when Skip says it's my turn to go, and battle as hard as I can and compete as hard as I can for as long as I can. Hopefully when I come out of the game, we're on top.

DARRYL KILE: You try to look at guys that have done well in games that are important, and it's usually the guys that treat that game the same as the game that's pitched in May. Guys that continue to do the same kind of thing day in and day out and treat each game the same usually perform a little better. It doesn't always mean the results are great, but my job is to go out there and make as many quality pitches as I can and hopefully catch a few breaks. And, hopefully they miss a few of my mistakes.

DARRYL KILE: I would have to say yes. Here I am in a new organization, the first day of spring training. I mean, I got to meet Bob Gibson, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. And to have a chance to sit and talk to him, hear some of his stories on the serious side and some on the funny side, some of his experiences, some of the things that helped him through his career in big games or not-so-big games or every game, however you want to look at it, has really helped me. I do owe a lot of what's happened to me this year to guys like him and some of the other people in the Cardinals organization that have helped.

DARRYL KILE: I don't think it's anything specific as much as just the experience and things that he had. So I'd ask him questions, did he ever hang a slider, and he always said yeah. (Laughing.) You know? But he goes, There's points in a game where hitters or counts on a certain hitter, certain points in a game where he just didn't hang them. That's what separated him from a lot of pitchers, I think - when it was time to make a quality pitch, he made a quality pitch. I think that's why he's special.

DARRYL KILE: I think as a starting pitcher, it's your responsibility to make sure anybody that you have an opportunity to pitch to kind of understands your philosophy, your style, and what you're doing. It's not the catcher's responsibility there, I don't think. I think the catchers that we have work hard, including Mike, including Carlos, including Eli, now including Rick Wilkins also. They've all worked real hard to help make my job easier of telling them or teaching them or discussing with them how I'd like to go about trying to pitch to a line-up.

DARRYL KILE: I did?

DARRYL KILE: Okay.

DARRYL KILE: No, if you look at it this way, if you're nervous or excited - which is a better word probably - to pitch, it's probably because you care and the game means something to you and to your team. So I think it's more anxiousness to get it started more than nervousness. After the first pitch is thrown or when you warm up in a bullpen, usually that stuff disappears and you focus on making quality pitches and as many of them as you can.

DARRYL KILE: I'm not sure. I think you just have to, time and time again, stay ahead in the count, make quality pitches when you have a chance to get out of an inning quickly, try to stop any momentum when they get going. And, again, it all boils down to making quality pitches. I don't want to sound repetitious there, because if you focus on it that way, I can't control anything other than a pitch I throw and how well I throw it. So hopefully the job I got to do is throw as many quality pitches as I can for however many pitches I'm out there.

DARRYL KILE: It's the same thing. It's a seven-game series, not a two-game series. Our job is to go out there, prepare the way we've prepared all year, focus on what we feel we need to do to be successful and execute. That's what it all boils down to.