AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: INDIANS v YANKEES

October 6, 1998

Jorge Posada

JORGE POSADA: He had a good fast ball. I mean, he has put it in an out; good curve ball he was ahead of the hitters for the whole game. I mean, he was in command. I mean, he likes these kind of situations and he was on.

JORGE POSADA: This is another game. I mean, we come out here and with the same focus. Every time we come out there and I mean, he is not a revenge or anything like that. It is just, you know, we were focused and we were very intense and I mean, the team came right after him. We had a good game plan against Wright. We left the fast balls up and tried to get the fast balls down in the zone and the quality of at-bats today was -- we did that that the whole day. We had some good quality at-bats; that is why we scored some runs.

JORGE POSADA: I wasn't intimidated. David Wells, I told him this spring training one time I said: There is not -- there shouldn't be any reason why you shouldn't win 20 games with the kind of stuff you got. You should be a 20-game winner every time he goes out there. He has proven it. I mean, he has had an incredible year and he is still doing it postseason. He goes out there and he is very intense even when he don't have his good stuff, he is still -- I mean, just finds the way to throw a good game. He has been doing that the whole year. I give him a lot of credit because -- last year, he used to give up or just shut it down and this year he just, you know, looking farther than throwing seven or eight innings, he wants to finish the game, complete games. He is doing that the whole year. He is amazing. I don't know why we get along so well. But he let's me call the game and I feel a lot of confidence just to call, you know, certain pitches because I mean, he has got such good stuff that makes it a lot easier for me.

JORGE POSADA: I mean, if somebody gets hit in the hand especially Thome, I mean, you are not going to stand, you know, on your feet, first thing you are going to go down or you are going to try to rub it or you are going to be in pain. He didn't show any kind of pain at all. You can hear clearly the ball hit the bat. The way the ball came off the bat was, you know, a ground ball to the pitcher and I told him to throw it to first and hit it. He called like the ball hit his finger too, but it is just one of those calls, you know, judgment calls and you just it didn't go our way, but it was -- I thought it was clearly hit the bat and Joe Torre asked him what happened and Jim Evans said it hit his hand while it hit his bat too.

JORGE POSADA: No, he was just asking how you feel, stuff like that. And just trying to, you know, regroup and stuff to tell him to regroup and forget about it and he did that.

JORGE POSADA: I mean, we got to worry about David Cone tomorrow. I mean, not that I am going to think that David Cone is going to have a bad game, but Hernandez is fourth game and he has been throwing bullpens, I don't know -- I can't tell you. We are going to have to see when the time comes.

JORGE POSADA: Bernie was pressuring a lot. He puts a lot of pressure on himself, and finally to get a couple of hits, couple of RBIs helps him a lot. We need Bernie; today we got him back.

JORGE POSADA: I don't know. Tough to say. I couldn't tell you. You are going to have to ask some of the umpires. I can't really tell you. I don't want to put any words in the umpire's mouth or what they think.

JORGE POSADA: You can't keep David Wells to do anything, I mean, he goes out his own. He is on his own. He is going to do whatever he want out there. So you are going to have to -- I will let Joe Torre to do that. I can't do that.