AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES v ATHLETICS

October 3, 2000

Art Howe

ART HOWE: Gil goes after hitters. Makes them put the ball in play early in the count usually and makes quality pitches early in the count. Tonight I thought the key for him was getting out of the first inning without any damage. They got the first two guys on, got the big double play ball by O'Neill and was able to get out any damage. That's huge for us to Commissioner's Office the field, still 0-0, a chance to do something good with it.

ART HOWE: Outstanding. Got the hits when we needed it got things going for us in the fifth inning, hit the line drive. We got some momentum going, got the walk with the next hitter with Giambi; Ramon got the big hit and put us on the board. Maybe a little sigh of relief and got something going.

ART HOWE: Ramon is our secret weapon at the bottom of the order. You need hitting up and down the order to win ballgames. Ramon is a much better hitter than the numbers he put up this year. If you look at his numbers throughout the Minor Leagues he has always been a productive hitter and we feel good about him being down there, because there's not on easy touch anywhere in the lineup.

ART HOWE: To be honest with you, I thought we started a little slow. We were a little raggedy here and there early in the game, but we settled in and played a great ballgame from that point on. Really our bullpen was the real secret tonight. They came in and just pitched three 0's on the board, which we needed and did a great job.

ART HOWE: I'll tell you, the way Roger was throwing the ball early on, it looked like it might be a long evening for us, to be honest with you. The velocity that he had tonight, it was vintage Clemens. He was nasty. And the guys just hung in there and finally put some things together. But once we got on the board, it felt like the momentum started to shift and obviously when we came out of the inning on top, we knew that he had some help in the bullpen if we needed it, but Gil did a fine job, six very good innings for us.

ART HOWE: Definitely. A lot of people think we go up there looking for walks. We go up there looking for a ball to drive. If we don't get pitches to hit, we try to layoff them until we get something to hit and that's what Ramon did in that case. He finally got a pitch that he could put the good part of the bat on and he did a good job of it. We're looking for something to drive when we go to the plate.

ART HOWE: It's the first game of the series. I don't know about a big dent. We certainly wanted to get this game. They are happen and I excited. That's the way our club is. We enjoy wins and 23 we lose, we come and we get ready for tomorrow. We wanted to enjoy this evening, but they want had better be ready tomorrow, we have Pettitte we're going against tomorrow and we know we're going to have our hands full, but we're going to battle.