AL DIVISION SERIES: MARINERS v WHITE SOX

October 4, 2000

Jerry Manuel

JERRY MANUEL: Probably so. It doesn't give you much time to think about what happened yesterday or even last night to be honest with you. So it's good to know that there's another game today. We're looking forward to it.

JERRY MANUEL: Knowing me, I do that all the time so there would be too many things to list, but I don't know, I would probably hesitate to get into that because I probably would manage it a little different, you know, about feeling. If that's how I feel at that time, then that's how I feel.

JERRY MANUEL: Yeah, I feel pretty good about our team. I think a lot of them, especially from the offensive part of it, felt a little overanxious and what have you. I think all the things that Von has talked to them about, about this particular time of the year, a lot of those things happened yesterday. They didn't get good pitches to hit, they weren't patient in key situations, and it cost them. But it's a great experience for them. I'm really glad that we went through the experience. For the most part, I think it was an entertaining baseball game yesterday, it's just unfortunate that we didn't win.

JERRY MANUEL: Health-wise, Herbert was fine. I thought we bunted him over, I think in that one inning, he got to second pretty good. I think what happened on the ball that Charles hit to centerfield, he hesitated and started back toward the bag because it was a line drive. And even if he is at full speed, I don't know if we're going to get 3.4 out of Herbert Perry anyway. I think Herbert Perry is 4.9 at best any way and right now he's probably 4.91. So there's not a big discrepancy as far as his speed goes. He's obviously a below-average runner and other than that, I don't know if you can go any lower than that, below below-average runner. I don't think he's in that category. As far as Chad, I thought he had a good chance to put Cam away. He left the ball out over the plate, obviously didn't execute the pitch that was called and then he was just trying to throw a strike, I think, to A-Rod. I thought he handled Edgar pretty good in keeping the ball in on him. He showed him something a little different.

JERRY MANUEL: Well, I think after Frank's first at-bat, basically, as a staff we would tell him to calm down a little bit. I thought he was a little bit anxious in his approach. I think he really wants to do a lot at this particular time. I mean, this is a good stage for him. I think a lot of things have happened to him this year, and obviously he wants to prove to the nation that he's back and doing well. But I thought Frank kind of got caught up in the emotion of the game and trying to do a little too much. There were times where there were hits that we could have got that Frank was not at the plate that could have broken the game open. So to answer your second question, I think that we can.

JERRY MANUEL: Well, you have to be real careful. I think they have a good situation when he's right after Rodriguez and right behind him is Olerud, a left-handed hitter. The only thing that you can do is be careful and if it's late in the ball game, you know you have a chance with -- your situation is better with Wunsch and Olerud probably than with Edgar than anybody else because of the fact of his experience and he's such a great hitter, such a great clutch hitter.

JERRY MANUEL: No, I give my signs to the coaches. If I go any place, it's to the mound. I wouldn't go to a baserunner and tell him -- I mean, he obviously -- Lou had something that he wanted him to do or whatever, and Lou does a few things every now and then. That's no problem; he's a good manager.

JERRY MANUEL: Actually, I expect him to be a lot stronger today. So he will not be on a pitch count unless he starts to feel some discomfort in the elbow. As soon as that happens, then obviously he'll be out of the game. But as far as a pitch count for him, he could probably go maybe into 115s, 120s. It depends on how he's pitching obviously at that time. But if I had to put a limit on it, it would probably be in that area and depending on how many times he's gone through the line-up and what they've done with him at the times that he's gone through it.

JERRY MANUEL: Well, we don't feel so. Again, I reiterate the fact that we're not asking Herbert -- Herbert's not in there for his speed. He's basically in there for his clutch hitting. We don't feel, with the range of motion that he's shown Herm and the strength that he's shown Herm, that he might be half a step slower, but that doesn't make a whole lot of difference in Herbert as far as his speed goes. He's been in a unique situation where this is the first time that he's played third base in his career for this many games. He hasn't basically shown great range to start with, and what he has done was he's made the routine play for us and that's all we ask of him at this time.

JERRY MANUEL: Well, it's a chance where we need to win a ball game; that's for sure. I mean, our backs are pretty much against the wall in this situation. I think if we can come out of here with a win, we've played very well at Safeco Field, and we feel somewhat comfortable on the road. The road doesn't necessarily intimidate us or affect us. We've played good baseball on the road all year. So this is a good chance to see how we can play in this type of atmosphere with this type of intensity.

JERRY MANUEL: We've never -- especially offensively -- exercised caution at any time. We have a game plan; we have a strategy. The guys know what they're going to be asked to do, and if given the opportunity, we're going to do it. So we're going to play pretty much our wide-open type of baseball that we played the entire year.

JERRY MANUEL: No, we should be in pretty good shape down there today. I think even though Keith threw - I think - 35 pitches, he should be able to give us an inning. Everybody should be in pretty good shape. So we feel pretty good about that situation.