NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 2, 2002

Bob Brenly

BOB BRENLY: I think in any sport, there are certain guys who relish the limelight. I think back to my playing days. I'm sure you all remember Will Clark was a guy who was obviously a great player throughout the regular season, but when the lights were the brightest, it seemed like he looked forward to those opportunities to show the world how good he was. I think Schill is a lot along those same lines. He's as dependable and consistent as any pitcher in the game throughout the regular season. But when the lights are the brightest, he seems to bring his best.

BOB BRENLY: Well, I think maybe it's something that could possibly be developed over the course of a career by experience and learning from negative experiences and building on positive experiences. But I don't think it's something you can teach. I think that's something that really comes from within the individual.

BOB BRENLY: Greg Colbrunn is going to play first base and Mark Little will play leftfield.

BOB BRENLY: Yes. Tony Womack, Junior Spivey, Steve Finley, Colbrunn will hit fourth, play first base, Matt Williams, McCracken, Little and Damian Miller. Little in left, McCracken in right.

BOB BRENLY: It doesn't really matter what they've done the last couple weeks; all that matters is what they do tomorrow night. These guys have all done it for us this season. We expect them to do it again. It's been a rough stretch here for the last couple of weeks, with some exceptions. But we fully expect them to be ready to go Thursday night if we need them.

BOB BRENLY: BK just wants to pitch. He wanted to pitch in the ballgame last night. He called down to the dugout and wanted to pitch the ninth inning. He just wants to pitch. If it's a safe situation, obviously that's why he's here. He's our closer. But he'd pitch every game if we let him. He's a competitor. He likes to go out there and do what it is he does. You know, we've had to tell him "absolutely not" several times this year where he's begged to come into ballgames where it really wasn't his situation in the game.

BOB BRENLY: It just tells me these guys have played in a lot of games in their career where they've been blown out, and you have to come back and play again the next day. It doesn't make it any easier. It doesn't soften the blow of a tough loss. It's just one game. There's no carry-over value. We'll toe it up tomorrow and it will be nothing-to-nothing when the game starts. Our guys I think have come to grasp that reality over the course of their careers. The sooner you can let a bad game go and move on, the sooner you can get a good game go and move on, the better your chances of competing the next day.

BOB BRENLY: How far back do you want to go? We can go back to the series at the beginning of the season when we did the same thing to them. This has no bearing on the series. Last week has no bearing on this series. They played three great games in St. Louis, whacked the ball all over the ballpark. That is what it is. The way this game goes, we've all seen it happen, the shoe could be on the other foot tomorrow, or it could be a nothing-nothing game for 18 innings. We don't know what's going to happen. Cardinals are swinging the bats well. They're a dangerous team. They're a powerful offensive ballgame. They showcased that extremely well last night. Schill's job is to not let them do that tomorrow. That's what we're hoping for.

BOB BRENLY: I mean, we watch all of our pitchers. We try to watch all of our pitchers closely to make sure that doesn't happen. An overwhelming majority of our preparation time for every game is to look at opposing pitchers to see if they're doing something similar. Schill is a very intelligent man. We've got a lot of very experienced baseball eyes that have been looking at video the last couple days. If there's something there, we'll correct it.

BOB BRENLY: We haven't had a lot of head-to-head competitions with Chuck Finley. We saw him in Cleveland this year. Some of our guys that have been in the American League have some history against him. But, once again, because of the advanced scouting and the videotape that's available, we feel we'll have a pretty good idea of what he's trying to do out there tomorrow. As I told you during the regular season, our guys are very adept at bringing back scouting reports from their at-bats. Ideally, Tony and Junior in the first go around will run some deep counts and force Finley to throw a lot of pitches, come back with the scouting report as to what those pitches are doing tomorrow. We'll go from there. I mean, in a lot of respects Chuck Finley is like Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, he's a guy that's been around the game for a lot of time. Enough people have seen him, whether it be live, on television or videotape. We feel we'll have a pretty good idea what he's trying to do.