AL DIVISION SERIES: MARINERS v WHITE SOX

October 3, 2000

Mike Sirotka

MIKE SIROTKA: I feel good about it. Very excited. It's taken a long -- it's taken the last three years, a lot of rebuilding and then we've done it with a lot of our home-grown guys. It's very exciting for the city, for the organization, and for my teammates. We're very excited about it.

MIKE SIROTKA: It's kind of just a wait-and-see kind of thing. I have to go through my warmup routine, see how it feels, try and test it a little bit in the bullpen beforehand and see where it's gonna let me take it. I don't know if I can throw 100 percent, but if I can throw 99 percent, I still think I can get people out and I think as far as being limited, I think it is a pitch-by-pitch basis and a situation in the game basis.

MIKE SIROTKA: Well, that's the first I've heard of it. I didn't know what the final decision was. Mark was a guy who all the pitchers very much liked throwing to. He was great behind the plate. But I think the move is probably based because Josh can run a little bit better, not that he's necessarily a better catcher or anything like that. I think with our team, maybe with some of the guys getting on base, if you need that run from, you know, the guy to score from first on a double or a guy to score from second on a hard single, I think Josh probably brings a little bit more speed. That's an option that Jerry and Schue decided to use him.

MIKE SIROTKA: Yeah. Any time you go through a Major League season, you don't feel perfect on every single pitch. When you're throwing them over 3,000 pitches a year, whatever it might be, there's definitely times, you know, when you're a little sluggish, your arm's hurting here, hurting there. There's just things -- you learn the limits of your body being a starting pitcher. Because sometimes you can take it and go all-out; sometimes you can't. That's what I'll have to find out tomorrow, is where I can take it.

MIKE SIROTKA: Yes, I did have significant input into it. I went through a good throwing routine yesterday, and basically with Jerry, Arty, Schue, all watching and seeing how I was throwing. And everything went very well and the decision was made probably more just in case I had any problems coming today so that we wouldn't be hanging Jim out to dry and just knowing for sure that everything would be right going into Game 1 but also giving me another day's rest, to be a little more cautious.

MIKE SIROTKA: Obviously it's a very strong line-up, one through nine especially, Alex and Edgar are two of the premiere hitters in the American League. But at the same time, like with any hitters, they all have their weaknesses and if you're a good pitcher, you know how to get there, and that's really the important thing. We faced them before, you've seen them several times, you know what to expect, you know what everybody in that line-up can do, and you try to make your pitches and not be intimidated by them. They're Major League hitters, just like anybody else at this level. Maybe you throw tougher pitches to those two guys and take your chances with the other guys.

MIKE SIROTKA: I just talked about that.

MIKE SIROTKA: Yeah. I think that -- basically, the decision was probably made not on either of those two guys' catching abilities but more because of probably the speed option that Josh brings. That's all -- about as far as I can guesstimate on that.

MIKE SIROTKA: I assume so. Mark's done a great job for us all year, all pitchers love throwing to him. We certainly wish that he was on the roster with us. He's a tremendous addition to our team. But at the same time Jerry and Schue are trying to give themselves every single best option they can to win a baseball game, and I don't think it is a personal decision. It's more of, "What can we do to win a game?"

MIKE SIROTKA: Well, considering we're a better team on the road (laughing) yeah, hopefully that will come into play. But, you know, it's gonna be kind of unusual for us to play in front of a packed house at home. It will be very exciting, very enthusiastic, and, you know, a tremendous feeling, a rewarding feeling for us, you know, kind of a -- that we have earned a little bit of respect in some -- it's nice to have the people of Chicago behind us. But at the same time, it really comes down to if you can control your emotions and your aggressiveness and your intensity, if you can control all those emotional things when there is a large crowd, which our team has done very well this year playing, being a very good team on the road. So I think our guys will handle it very well and just feel a sense of pride that it's finally happening at home.

MIKE SIROTKA: It's one of those things about being a baseball player that you really cannot explain. Because there's several teams that I've struggled against throughout my career and there's a couple -- there's some teams -- that I've done very well against. For some reason, Seattle's one of those teams that I always seem to pitch very well against. I think just the way maybe my ball moves and the way I pitch coming in -- plays into some of their weaknesses. My strengths play into their weaknesses. And then at the same time I've always been able to adjust to their guys very well.