NL DIVISION SERIES: METS v GIANTS

October 7, 2000

Dusty Baker

DUSTY BAKER: Well, my feelings are the same. This team is still going to bounce back. We always bounce back. You know, they won the second game at our place. It's up to us to win the second game at their place and then take it back home to San Francisco. Still very positive and confident. They have got some big hits. There were plenty of opportunities on both sides and that was a huge home run that Benny Agbayani hit. I don't know what inning it was, it was long. It was a heck of a ballgame. I tell you, the TV ratings had to be up high. You hate to lose a game like that, but both bullpens did a great job and we had some opportunities to win the game, just like they did.

DUSTY BAKER: No, we didn't. Well, we got a big-two out hit in the inning that we scored two runs. I think both of those came with two outs. That was huge for us. But yeah, usually the team that gets the most two-out hits, and then that clutch home run, there have not been many home runs in this series. Like I said, we've won two in a row before, so no reason we can't win two in a row again.

DUSTY BAKER: He's been great for us all year. He got out of a tough jam with runners on first and second and nobody out. That was a heck of an at-bat by Payton against him and he won the battle. Not only did he win the battle, but he broke about five or six bats in the meantime. That was a great performance. I know we wanted to get him out there as soon as possible, which is what we tried to do here, especially after the tough outing that he had in San Francisco. I tell you, that was a great, great ballgame to watch, and a tough ballgame to lose.

DUSTY BAKER: Yeah, definitely Mark Gardner, and whoever else is healthy and walking and available. Both sides are sort of spent out of the bullpen. The battle is between the two homeboys from Fresno, one older, one younger, and see which side of Fresno wins tomorrow.

DUSTY BAKER: You hate to see guys just taking strikes, but you've got to give White, especially late in the game a lot of credit. He was starting off with a first-pitch breaking ball, and the guys that could run he was starting off with first-pitch strikes, fastballs. I don't think the guys were picking up his breaking ball very well, and he was throwing two or three different breaking balls. He did a great job for them tonight. And sometimes when hitters are not hitting, it is not necessarily the fault of the hitters, but sometimes to the credit of the pitcher.