AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v INDIANS

October 9, 1999

Mike Hargrove

MIKE HARGROVE: Jaret's the only guy that we had with any length in the bull pen right now. All of the rest of the guys out there are one or two inning guys. We were trying to get through six or seven to be able to get to the back end of the bull pen and close it out. That's the reason I stayed with him as long as I did. That was his last inning.

MIKE HARGROVE: Yes. We knew coming in to today's game that Dave was limited in the number of innings he could go and the pitches he could throw. He just went -- tightened

up on him a lot sooner than we thought that it might.

MIKE HARGROVE: He threw strikes, threw fast balls and change ups. Had a good strategy, run away from left-handed hitters. He kept his team in the game. Did a good job.

MIKE HARGROVE: Jim, before his last start against Toronto. I forget, it was in Kansas City. I can't remember where he pitched. But counting the Toronto start, the start before that is when it came up. He had the same ailment when he started against Toronto and went the five innings against Toronto.

MIKE HARGROVE: No. But we were just talking about the, you know, the situation in the game and trying to, you know, just try and settle him down a little bit. We had noticed sitting on the bench he was doing a lot of gyrations with his hand and stretching, stretching his arm. Looked like his forearm, that's where the injury was. So we kind of had some indications that it was starting to tighten up on him. Trying to just get him through the fourth inning.

MIKE HARGROVE: I thought Jaret could throw, he's been one of our starters all year. It would have been his third inning. I didn't, you know, I felt he was throwing the ball good, he was throwing hard. You know, we let him go one more inning.

MIKE HARGROVE: The match up I wanted was Rincon, Nixon. We got that. And Rincon, you know, he's as effective against right handers as he is left handers, has been throughout his career. We decided to let him go through the left handers he had inserted through his line-up. Offerman has been an effective -- less effective hitter. Power-wise, maybe a little better. Average-wise he has been less effective as a right-handed hitter. I had DePaula up to give me the option of whether or not to stay with Rincon through Valentin or go to DePaula. Once the bases were loaded, I felt that Rincon gave us a better chance to get Valentin out that DePaula would bring them in with the bases loaded.

End of FastScripts….