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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS v CARDINALS

October 16, 2000

Bobby Valentine

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Game Five

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Bobby Valentine.

Q. There's a stat floating around now that last two years in the post-season, guys on three days' rest are 0-4, 17.51 ERA in nine starts. It wasn't that long ago that it wasn't that big a deal pitching on three days' rest. Can you explain what you think is going on?

BOBBY VALENTINE: It just seems that numbers have routines that they get into, and they do a lot of things in between starts. When the routines are interrupted, it might affect them. I'm not sure, I'm not smart enough to figure all that out. One of my guys contributed to those stats last year in the last game we played, so...

Q. Routines are more complicated than they used to be with all the weight training?

BOBBY VALENTINE: I think they are. I think that there are things that guys do that they really feel prepare them, and I think their body, even more than their mind, just gets into that routine.

Q. To follow that up, either this year or in some future year, if you were in post-season, would you actually weigh that and be less likely to start a guy on three days?

BOBBY VALENTINE: Well, I think experience is a great teacher for me, and I didn't like the experience, so I don't think I'll do it. But, things can change.

Q. What, if any, similarities do you see between your pitching staff now and the pitching staff the Mets had back in '86?

BOBBY VALENTINE: I wasn't here in '86 it wouldn't be good to do a comparison. I'm not good at that stuff anyway.

Q. What would your counters have been last night if McGwire had hit in the sixth or in the eighth?

BOBBY VALENTINE: Well, I still had Turk (Wendell) in both situations, I think I had Armando (Benitez) also and on the burner in the eighth. So it could have been either one of them.

Q. I know you don't want to get ahead of yourself, but if you face (Roger) Clemens in Yankee Stadium, do you think there's any spillover from the incident with (Mike) Piazza earlier this year?

BOBBY VALENTINE: I think that's a question for a much later date.

Q. When (John) Olerud left and Rey (Ordonez) got hurt, there was some question about how your team defense would be affected. Can you talk about the guys that have come in both in the infield and outfield who have kept it a strength?

BOBBY VALENTINE: Well, I think you touched on it, that our outfield defense picked up where infield defense left off. I think that it's been a major plus for us this year, and I think the guys learned to work together when Mike Bordick came over, a little time with Melvin Mora, and we still had Robin (Ventura) and Fonzie (Edgardo Alfonzo) stabilizing the situation. I think Todd Zeile's done a wonderful job of improving as the year has continued.

Q. Do you see Timo Perez as your rightfielder for next year and beyond or does he still have to prove himself?

BOBBY VALENTINE: That's another question for a much later date, but Timo is a very good player.

Q. Tony (LaRussa) just said that you're moving Timo into the leadoff was a hell of a move, a major reason you're 3-1. Can you talk about that decision-making process and what a risk that was.

BOBBY VALENTINE: Well, there was risk. What happened, Derek (Bell) got hurt and I inserted Timo in, and he had two at-bats, I guess, in that game. I think it was two. They were aggressive. They weren't very productive. The next day, there's a left-hander, and the option was either to go with Bubba Trammell and wait for (Russ) Ortiz to be the right-hander the next day and see what Timo could do there, or just start Timo off the get-go and let him know that he was going to have an opportunity to play against everyone every day. So the risk was that we'd lose Game 2 with a left-handed, inexperienced kid going against, say, a left-handed pitcher and us treading water from there.

Q. Are you excited about the possibility of what could happen tonight? Did you do anything special to your routine today?

BOBBY VALENTINE: Routine was pretty much the same, but I am excited. I think this is a very exciting game, and I think we'll put our best foot forward.

Q. There was a lot of talk towards the end of the season, Robin's numbers for the season did not matter, just what he did in the post-season. Do you look at this as redemption for him?

BOBBY VALENTINE: No, his numbers were different but his attitude was the same. It might even have been stronger towards the end of the season. He literally came into the office one day and said he was going to be fine, so was the team, and that was during some tough times. I believed him and supported him whole-heartedly.

Q. Besides personnel, the personality of your team, is it any different than it was a year ago? The atmosphere?

BOBBY VALENTINE: It's hard to really say the team has a personality. I think we're a little more of a unit this year than we were last year, and we were a pretty good unit last year.

Q. Is this the kind of veteran team that doesn't need to be told the urgency of winning, even though they don't have to, that they don't want to go back to St. Louis? Or will you talk to them about that?

BOBBY VALENTINE: I'm hoping that if there was urgency last night that the same attitude prevails tonight. I feel like we're a good team, and if we go out and play a good game, everything will take care of itself.

End of FastScripts....

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