AL DIVISION SERIES: MARINERS v WHITE SOX

October 5, 2000

Lou Piniella

LOU PINIELLA: I don't think so. We have not been complacent all year. We have not had that luxury and we still don't. We'll go out and play as hard as we can tomorrow for nine innings and hope things go our way. But the complacency issue, absolutely not.

LOU PINIELLA: No that's not true. I said mirrors and what I meant was basically we used everybody for the whole season, and then it worked and it was going to continue to work. We used our entire roster, all 25. All the pitchers and all our position players, even the call-ups that we had from Triple-A. I don't think there's anybody here that has not played. We utilized everybody. And that's what I meant by it but I don't know where the smoke came from.

LOU PINIELLA: And we used our whole roster. You take a look at the first two games in Chicago, our 25-man roster, the only guy that we have not been able to get in is Carlos. Passion-player wise and pitching wise we have not used our two left-handers, because really, they were not available and also Pineiro, our youngster, and we were ready to bring him into the ballgame yesterday if need be.

LOU PINIELLA: I hope he feels that way tomorrow. We've got good arms out there. We've got power arms. And we feel very comfortable as we have all year, giving them the baseball. And I've got confidence in every one of them. Mesa has got tremendous experience, Paniagua has pitched very well and so has Rhodes and Sasaki has done a great job out of the closer's roll. And at the same time, he could pitch tomorrow. He has been a starter and he has a good arm, also. We have some good arms out there and we recognize that. We'll go out and get our starter if we need to, and bring some power into the game.

LOU PINIELLA: You'd like to get it over with as soon as possible. There's no question. But at the same time, you've got to go out and do it on the field. We could use some rest. But at the same time, the White Sox are going to have a big say in this thing, too. They are going to come out tomorrow and play as well as they can. They have been a great ballclub all year. So we're going to have to play good baseball to get it over with. And hopefully, we will. But at the same time, I think there's more urgency over there than there is with us right now.

LOU PINIELLA: I have not made up my mind on what we are going to do for our lineup. I'm going to look at the reports, talk to a couple of our advance scouts, see what they tell us and then see what we do for our lineup. But if we need him to play, I think he'll be available.

LOU PINIELLA: I have not talked to the trainer yet. We'll talk to the trainer here, have a little meeting the next half hour or so, and see how everybody is. But we'll determine tomorrow what our lineup is going to be.

LOU PINIELLA: Nothing really worries me about the White Sox. And I don't mean that in an adverse way, because I have the utmost respect for them. We've just got to go out and play the same way we did the first couple games and play hard against them. They are a good ballclub. We recognized that when we saw them in Arizona this spring. We've been fortunate to beat them the first two times. We're not naive enough to know that we take things for granted. Tomorrow we're going to go out and play the best we can and take our chances.

LOU PINIELLA: Well, Aaron has pitched as well as anybody we've had the whole month of September. In fact, he was our best starting pitcher. So we feel good about sending him out there tomorrow night, or tomorrow afternoon against the White Sox. As far as what we've done, we basically have played the whole way. The month of September, the way we played our first two games yesterday, and the day before. We had a good September. We went 19-10. What's wrong with that? 19 wins, in the situation we were in, that's good baseball. We played a lot of tighteners along the way. Every game, basically, had playoff implications for us until the last day of the season. It just so happened that the team that was competing with us in the division title played a little better than we did. They came in here and beat us three out of four, and they went 22-7 for the month. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We played good baseball all September and we played two good games in Chicago that were two good baseball games. I thought we'd be ready when we played the White Sox, and so far, the two games that we've played have proved me right.

LOU PINIELLA: You've got to play well in your own ballpark. You play 81 games here. It's very simple. If you get to this level, you've got to play well at home. And we're at home now to finish this thing off and hopefully that's what we will do. We've got the fans behind us. Hitter's ballpark, not a hitter's ballpark, I don't think it really makes any difference now, does it? We've just got to go out and win the ballgame.

LOU PINIELLA: We pitched well here. We really have. We've hit better on the road than we've hit here. I said that in Chicago. Hopefully everything will come together for us tomorrow, good hitting, good defense, and good solid pitching.

LOU PINIELLA: We've been fortunate. We've made good pitches on them. And we'll try to do the same things that we've done. They are a talented bunch over there and they swing the bats. Let's hope that they stay cold and don't break loose.