NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 1, 2002

Bob Brenly

BOB BRENLY: As I said a few days ago, we're anticipating low-scoring ballgames. We feel there's a premium on defense. Mark Grace is our best first base man. That coupled with what I feel is a guy that's able to rise to the occasion, he did it in '89, did it again last year in the post-season, we're hoping he'll do it again this year.

BOB BRENLY: Well, they've got a great lineup. I don't know if I want to rank them and have to answer to somebody else at some point in the future. But the Cardinals do have a tremendous lineup one through eight. They've got guys in the middle of the lineup that are capable of hitting home runs. They've got table setters at the top. They have several players in their lineup who are very capable hit-and-run guys. From top to bottom, they are all average or better runners. So there's a variety of different ways they can attack you offensively. They definitely present a lot of challenges.

BOB BRENLY: Not tonight (laughter). We'll make decisions based on what we hear, who is going to start that game. I know Andy Benes is certainly a candidate. He pitched a great game against us in St. Louis last week. We'll cross that one when we get to it.

BOB BRENLY: Well, it developed basically when Damian Miller went on the disabled list earlier this year with some back problems. Rod Barajas and Chad Moeller will pretty much splitting the catching duties. As that time went by and Damian Miller returned from his back injury and we had to kind of ease him back into action, you know, a relationship developed between Randy and Chad Moeller. I think it was 17 starts in a row those guys hooked up together. I know the numbers are in the notes. Randy was incredible during that stretch. Rod Barajas has hooked up with Miguel Batista all year long because Miguel is tough to catch, has a lot of late movement on his pitches. It seemed like Rod was best suited to handle him back there. Curt Schilling has always preferred to throw to Damian Miller over the last two years. Those guys have hooked up extremely well. With the idea the post-season games, there's a heavy emphasis on pitching and defense, we felt we wanted to give our pitchers every comfort level we possibly could. You couple that with the fact we had very few healthy bodies to choose from otherwise, if we went with two catchers, so we decided to go with three.

BOB BRENLY: Well, I felt that either option that we had at that point, Helling or Batista, either one would be a good choice. After talking it over with the coaching staff and crunching some numbers, we all just felt that Miguel Batista gives us the best chance to keep the opposition from putting themselves in a position to score runs. Rick Helling throughout his career has been a guy that has allowed a number of base runners, but has always seemed to be able to pitch himself out of jams. He's done that very well in the second half of this season. But if given a preference, we'd rather not have a jam to pitch out of. That was basically the decision why we decided to go with Miguel over Rick.

BOB BRENLY: It's not as tough as you might think. Certainly with the advance scouts that we have nowadays, the videotape we have available, some of the players who have faced Chuck over in the other league, we saw him this year in Cleveland. Certainly we haven't seen him as much as we've seen some of their pitchers. But I really don't think unfamiliarity will be a factor in the next game.

BOB BRENLY: Well, I've always tried to be a very confident and optimistic guy. I like our chances. I know we've had a lot of things to deal with injury-wise this year. I think because of the experience we had last year, it has prepared us a little better for what lies in store this year. It's back to the old cliches. We just want to win one game right now. This is the most important game of our season. Nobody in the purple pinstripes is looking past tonight.

BOB BRENLY: McCracken is a guy we played in left, we played him in right, I believe we played him in center field a couple times this year. That versatility certainly helps. He's a switch hitter, which in my eyes is equally as strong from either side of the plate. He's an above-average runner. He's a tremendous handler of the bat. He's a great hit-and-run guy. He can bunt third base, he can bunt first base. Obviously, he's not going to hit as many home runs at Luis Gonzales, but he brings a little different dimension to our ball club. He's been invaluable this year. We really didn't anticipate that Quinton McCracken was going to be as big a factor for the club as he has proven to be.

BOB BRENLY: I seriously doubt anybody you see on the field tonight is at a hundred percent right now. But they're as good as they're going to be. Quinton, his bruise to his shin doesn't limit his running, doesn't limit his hitting. It's sore. I would imagine he'll be wearing a shin guard at the plate but it doesn't restrict him in any way. The same thing with David Dellucci. His injury was much less serious than we anticipated. We're glad of that. But both those guys are as good as they can possibly be.

BOB BRENLY: I think "swagger" is something that's defined more from the outside than the inside. I mean, we've got a lot of veteran players that discourage swagger on the part of their teammates, if you know what I mean. We're a very businesslike ball club. Any confidence or any swagger that we have, we try to keep it inside. I don't really sense that. I mean, one of the tremendous assets of this ball club over the last two years is the amazing ability to roll with the punches. No matter how bad of a punch it is, they seem to find a way to go out there and get things done. Certainly losing Luis Gonzales and Craig Counsell and Danny Bautista, Brian Anderson, those are big blows to our ball club. We found a way to get to this point, and I think the team is resolved we're going to find a way to continue pushing forward.