NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS v CARDINALS

October 14, 2000

Carlos Hernandez

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: Hopefully, he keeps throwing the same way he threw today. I think he was pretty good. His location was pretty good, the slider was good. Every time he was throwing the pitch, it was working. So the fastball was - I think that was the best pitch tonight, in and out.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: I think this team, we have pretty good chemistry. So every time we go up there, we try to get everything together and try to do our best. We don't die too easy. We want to keep us in the game. Will Clark, he's a tremendous leader. Every time we get down, he always talks and gives something positive. Our goal is to win. That's why we are playing this kind of game.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: No, I mean, no. I don't want to talk anything about that with him because he was throwing pretty good. I didn't want to change anything. I think if he did, maybe it was one or two times. After that, he was playing pretty good. I was asking about the game situation, asking how he was feeling. That situation we didn't want to talk much about, just something else. We just want to talk about the game.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: I think that was a key for all of us. Everybody knows Piazza, he's a real good hitter. When he got that ground ball, I mean, I thought it was over. Everybody, when Piazza goes to hit, everybody expects him to hit the ball out of the park. He keeps the ball down. I think Benes did a pretty good job against him tonight.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: No, I think pitchers is - I think it's a normal part of his game. Sometimes we don't throw a great pitch. Today, we have both sides - we hit, we score when we need to. We got big hits when we needed it, and we pitched the way we want to.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: In this situation, basically you got one out, I just tried to make contact. That was pretty good. We had a run. I think we have to be grateful, I made contact and tried to bring somebody in to home plate. In San Diego, for me, that was the beginning of my career. I had great times, nice moments. I went to play -- I played my first World Series. Hopefully, we will get here, too. So I think that was the beginning of my career. It gave me the opportunity to play.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ: I think everybody's -- we have -- like I said, when I said Will is a leader, I tried to say he's a veteran guy, he tries to help you any way he can. We had too many leaders on the team. We never thought we were going to lose. I don't think there's anyone in the locker room thinking we are going to lose. We were playing so hard to get here; we're ready to win. I know it's competition up there, I know the Mets, they want to win, too. But I have to think the way everybody is thinking in my locker room, we're here to win. We're not here to lose.