NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: BRAVES v DIAMONDBACKS

October 19, 2001

Bob Brenly

BOB BRENLY: Actually, tomorrow would be his regular throw day on the schedule that he's been on this year. With Miguel Batista, every day is his throw day. He's a very resilient pitcher. He made it very clear to me after his last start that he would be available out of the bullpen tonight. I would imagine it would be in a limited fashion. Maybe a couple of hitters or if the pitch count was very low, maybe an inning. But he would be available today and tomorrow.

BOB BRENLY: No.

BOB BRENLY: Tony's fine. We kept him out of the ball game Game 2. He had aggravated that calf injury that put him on the disabled list earlier this year. But it was more a case of the numbers against Tom Glavine than the calf injury. Had we been facing somebody who Tony had better career numbers against, he could have played. We had him available to pinch run a couple times in that game. We had him ready to pinch hit at another instance in that game. He's fine.

BOB BRENLY: He's staying on the ball a lot better. I think a lot of that is a by-product of facing this Atlanta pitching staff and knowing how they've worked him in the past. Specifically, against Tom Glavine. I thought he hit some balls very hard, flied out to the warning track a couple times in right centerfield. His approach just seems to be where we like to see Matty offensively. That, combined with his career numbers against Burkett, I felt comfortable putting him back in the four hole.

BOB BRENLY: Well, it was a little surprising. I know that there had been some rumblings that if Houston didn't do better in the post-season this year than they had in the past, he was going to take the fall for it. I think we've all been around the game long enough to know that when your team doesn't get where you hope they will at the end of the season, somebody's going to take the fall. Unfortunately, in this instance it was Larry Dierker. I think he's a great baseball man. I think above and beyond that he's a great man. It was unfortunate to see that happen. I'm sure he will resurface and continue to be very successful.

BOB BRENLY: Well, certainly. Any pitcher against any team twice in a short period of time, there are adjustments that you can make or you can try to make. But the other side of that coin is Curt's no dummy either. He can make adjustments to the adjustments that they make. I mean, it's just a given in this game of baseball, when you take any one of the premiere pitchers, and they've got a couple on their staff over there, too. If they make their pitches and execute their pitches the way they want to, there's not really much you can do against them. You just have to hope for mistakes. Fortunately, Curt has made very few mistakes in this post-season.

BOB BRENLY: As far as the offense goes, and we've addressed this in past gatherings, I prefer to give the credit to the opposing pitching. During the course of the regular season, you're facing four or five starters in the rotation as opposed to just one, two and three and the best guys in the bullpen. So naturally, facing the best pitchers that the other team has to offer, offense is going to be at a premium. I thought our approach in Game 1 and Game 2 against the Braves was very good. We didn't get results, but I thought we got good pitches to hit, and in most cases we hit them hard, but unfortunately right at people. As far as our bullpen goes, I think it's a very unfair criticism that they've received because of the failures in Game 2. This is a bullpen that all season long has bailed us out time after time after time. I think we finished third or fourth in the National League in bullpen ERA. We did all that with very much a patchwork group, guys in some cases that we weren't counting on this year, guys that we thought were going to be in Triple A this year, a lot of veterans where we didn't quite know where they fit in. For the overwhelming majority of this season they pitched extremely well, including the post-season. I think they put up five innings of shutout ball in the game Albie pitched in the Division Series. That was always a footnote. The first time they stumble in a ball game we were losing already anyway, they take a lot of heat. I think that's very unfair anyway.

BOB BRENLY: No, I wouldn't shy away from Brian Anderson today. He is another one of those guys that, you know, could probably throw every day if you ask him to. He would be the most logical candidate to follow Albie should he stumble early in the ball game tomorrow. But that would not preclude me from using him in the ball game tonight.

BOB BRENLY: Well, every game could swing it. I mean, it's very easy to make the assumption that when Curt or Randy take the mound, that's a game we should win. When Maddux and Glavine take the mound, that's a game they should win. As we've seen, that's not always the case. Certainly the games when the other starters take the mound are every bit as important as the games when the big horses take the ball. So I don't know if you could really make that kind of a statement. As far as chess, I think Bobby and I would both prefer checkers (laughter).

BOB BRENLY: Damian is good to play. He is like every guy on both teams out there, nobody's at 100 percent this time of year. Everybody's got dings and injuries and pulls and strains and bruises that they're playing with. The best I can say is he's good to go. He's caught a tremendous amount of ball games this year, a tremendous number of innings. He's done an outstanding job with our pitching staff. I expect him to continue to do that throughout the post-season. As far as putting a numerical value on it, I don't really know if I could. But he's the guy we want back there for every inning of every game.