AL DIVISION SERIES: MARINERS v WHITE SOX

October 6, 2000

Jerry Manuel

JERRY MANUEL: No, I felt that it would take the pressure off the team, with the beard.

JERRY MANUEL: He has had a little discomfort in his back, and we're just trying to hold him off a little bit. But he's had a little discomfort. Right now he's probably back to a hundred percent. If you -- you kind of watch the first time that he came out of the job, his velocity was uncharacteristically down for him, having the rest that he had had going into that particular outing, so we knew that there was something wrong at that point.

JERRY MANUEL: They feel like they got a new manager. I'm shaved and ready to go, Spring Training. They're pretty satisfied. Pretty happy. Everybody feels pretty good. We feel like if we could just win a game, that the momentum could easily shift; and how long that will last, no one knows.

JERRY MANUEL: Okay. You want me to give the line-up? Ray Durham will be playing second base. Jose Valentin is short stop. Frank Thomas at first, Ordonez, right field. Harold Baines is the DH. The reason, Harold has had some success against Aaron Sele, another reason is that Harold gives us another -- gives us kind of a veteran presence in the middle of the line-up. I think we've been kind of missing that. Behind Harold will hit Charles Johnson. Charles Johnson also is an experienced player, that is also having a good series. So it gives us a chance to really bunch some experience together and hopefully get some good veteran at-bats. After that is Herbert Perry, who's played well. Carlos Lee will be down in the 8th spot. Maybe that will alleviate some of the pressure that he's been feeling in the 5th spot. And Chris Singleton will be in center field. That will give us obviously another speed guy in center. And the only reason probably for Singleton not being in the 9th spot all along is because when you bring in a lefty, you can take him all the way through Valentin, if you understand that strategy. So if you had him 8th, you could -- you still have to go through Charles Johnson, a right-handed batter. If Rhodes came in and he would eventually go through Singleton then through a righty in Charles, and then obviously the two switch hitters; but obviously, Jose is a better lefty than righty. That's been pretty much the reason that Chris has not been 9th in this particular order.

JERRY MANUEL: No, I wouldn't hesitate. I think the situation would have to be one where obviously we have used the other options that we do have. We do have Barcelo, and Buehrle that have been accustomed to pitching long, a long -- long stints, rather. So we do have some people that are available for long relief. But if we got into an emergency situation late in the ballgame and Sean Lowe was available, then we could possibly use him there. If we had to go extra innings, we use everything that we had to obviously to try to win the ballgame.

JERRY MANUEL: Not for me. I'm not a -- I believe in other things. That's not one of them.

JERRY MANUEL: Frank Thomas's father said we hadn't been hitting since I had the beard is the word that I got from Frank (laughter.) I figured I'd do something for Frank.

JERRY MANUEL: Actually, Frank was so focused, I don't know if he even noticed. But I'll make sure that he sees. I'll walk by him a couple of times: Hey, how are you doing, Frank? He's pretty focused right now.

JERRY MANUEL: I would hope that we could get close to 80 or 90 pitches and have him somewhere in the 5th or 6th inning. That would be a good situation, a good scenario for us. He has been pitching in some discomfort, so he could possibly be something that could happen very early that we would have to obviously make changes.

JERRY MANUEL: No, I think you'd have to kind of feel out the situation, how -- I'll probably ask how he was in the bullpen. I normally don't ask, but I'll probably ask. And was he locating, and how does he feel, that type of thing. And if not, then obviously that might go into a decision, if we have to make one early.

JERRY MANUEL: Yes, everybody is available.