MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v DIAMONDBACKS

October 26, 2001

Bob Brenly

BOB BRENLY: Well, I would disagree somewhat. I think it always comes down to pitching and defense. I think what you see during the course of the regular season is more appearances by the No. 4 and 5 starters and more appearances by middle relievers, and I think more than anything else, that tends to inflate the offensive numbers. In the post-season, in the World Series just like the regular season, if you pitch well and you catch the ball when it is hit, you've got a pretty good chance to win games.

BOB BRENLY: Imagine I'll spend a considerable amount of time doing ninth grade homework with my son. The deal was, he does all his work for next week, this week so he can travel with us to New York. So I'll have not only my own homework to do tonight but some of his to do, as well. I think just like all of my players, we're just very anxious to get going. The amount of time between the end of the NLCS and the beginning of the World Series seemed like it was a blessing, but the longer it goes, the more anxious we are to get out there and play.

BOB BRENLY: No roster moves, and the lineup will be Tony Womack at shortstop, Craig Counsell at second base, Luis Gonzalez in left field, Reggie Sanders will bat fourth and play right field, Steve Finley will bat fifth and play center. Matt Williams to be sixth hitter at third base. Mark Grace at first, Damian Miller catching for Curt Schilling.

BOB BRENLY: I have not really allowed myself much of an opportunity to think about what's happened in the last 12 months. I prefer not to stop and think about it yet. I just want to keep doing what we've been doing all year, grinding and going out there and playing the game hard. As far as my philosophy or my theories, at least for this year, the philosophy was, keep these guys relaxed and let them go out there and do what they are capable of doing. Try not to be too heavy-handed. As I've said many, many times anything you do in life you're better if you're relaxed and confident and that's the atmosphere we tried to create for these players and they took advantage of it and they went out and did exactly what we hoped they would do.

BOB BRENLY: I don't think there's any question that when you play this particular Yankees ballclub, you always have to keep an eye on that tail-end of the bullpen. We have been taking an inning or two before with Ramirez, Mendoza and Mike Stanton the way they match up usually in the seventh inning. But knowing Rivera is capable of pitching the eighth and ninth inning, I think everybody that plays the Yankees have an eye for trying to score runs in the ballgame.

BOB BRENLY: I don't think they are relevant. I never really thought it was fair to compare players of one era to players of another era, anyway. I just think there are too many variables, too many things have changed, and I don't know if that's really a fair comparison, but certainly, the fact that one is a righty and one is a lefty and they have dominated their league like nobody since those guys, I guess that's where the comparisons come in.

BOB BRENLY: Not really. (Smiles). Sitting in the press box high above the stadium and watching the action take place and anticipating and commenting on things that happen are quite different from my job this year. The Yankees are a great ballclub, there's no question about that. I feel more comfortable with what I received from my advance scouts this morning than any experience I gained from the broadcast booth.

BOB BRENLY: One of the things about him that kind of goes unsaid is the fact that he is very capable of making adjustments over the course of a ballgame depending on what an offense is trying to do against him. Teams try to be overly aggressive against Curt because he does throw a lot of strikes, and as you can see by the numbers, that was not a tremendously effective approach. If they try to be more patient with him, I'm sure Curt can make an adjustment and do what he has to do to be equally effective against that kind of a lineup.

BOB BRENLY: I'm absolutely okay with it. As I said before, relaxed and confident is the way to be good at whatever it is you do. I'm sure some of it may be a little nervous energy, but that's all right, too. We've got a teamful of guys who have been looking forward to the next week, their whole lives, and I want them to enjoy it. I want them to have fun with it. The last thing in the world I want to see is a bunch of tight butts out there and I want them to go out there and enjoy this, win, lose or draw this is what they have played their whole careers for and I want them to milk it for everything it's worth.

BOB BRENLY: I think, certainly a large portion of it is media created, as I've said in some of these meetings before, that we're not playing against Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth and Whitey Ford and we are playing against this years team, and the mystique is that they seem to consistently have great players on their team. The uniform doesn't beat you, the ballpark doesn't beat you, the fans don't beat you, the history of that organization doesn't beat you. The players on that team are what you have to worry about. So as far as I'm concerned, the mystique is right down the hall in the clubhouse.

BOB BRENLY: I think that would be very unfair to Derek Jeter and Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez, Roger Clemens and the other great players in that clubhouse. Certainly, that's a nice safety net they have down there at the end of the ballgame and he's been about as efficient as anybody could be filling that role. But, I don't know that I would say that he is the mystique.

BOB BRENLY: BK, at this point in the season, as you saw in the NLCS is very capable of going two innings at the end of the ballgame, he has told me he can go three innings if we need him to. He has a very resilient arm. He's in tremendous physical condition and most importantly, he's in tremendous mental condition at this point in the season. He wants the ball, he wants to be in the game. With the outcome riding on his shoulders. Should the opportunity present itself, we would not hesitate to use him two innings at the end of the game.

BOB BRENLY: They both came into my office a few days ago and volunteered if necessary to come back on short rest. As far as my feelings on that, I'm hoping we don't need to do that. You've been around the post-season, I've maintained those guys are much better on regular rest and that I have a lot of confidence in the rest of our pitching staff to do what they are supposed to do. So ideally, we will not have to do that, but if necessary, we are not ruling it out.

BOB BRENLY: I'm very confident in them. Each one of our pitchers in the bullpen has something that they do well or an area of specialization and when that situation comes up, in the ballgame I would not hesitate to put them in. Mike Morgan is as good a ground ball pitcher as there is in baseball today and Swindell is a left-hander who is equally effective against righty's. They have done it for us all year long and I would not hesitate to go to those guys.

BOB BRENLY: He's been a huge part of this ballclub for a lot different reasons. He's played a very underrated defense for us in right field, tremendous defensive job for us. His speed gave us a dimension that we did not have a lot of in our lineup, his ability to score from first base on an extra-base hit or steal. Offensively he was streaky at times during the season, he would have a couple of good weeks and a couple of not so good weeks but toward the end of the season he started to put up the kind of consistent numbers we were expecting from him and he was a nice complement from the players that we had already here.