NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 6, 1999

Tom Glavine

TOM GLAVINE: I see a little bit of it this year, and I think it probably started a little bit last year. Seemed to me that last year it looked like he made a little bit more of an effort to work the outside part of the plates than he did. He was a guy that I think worked primarily inside a lot and worked primarily to keep guys away. I think I remember reading somewhere last year him saying that he was going to try to work the outside part of the plate a little bit more, and it seems like every game that I've seen him pitch this year, that's been his approach. He's had a fantastic year. You know, the styles are similar. We're not going to blow anybody away. We rely on moving the ball around and changing speeds.

TOM GLAVINE: Obviously, for selfish reasons, I'm disappointed to see it go. I've had good success there and I think most pitchers in baseball, that's one of the few parks that you go into now and feel like it's more of a pitcher's advantage than it is a hitter's advantage. And those ballparks are few and far between now. Next year, we'll be battling at another ballpark that is more hitter-friendly than pitcher-friendly. I guess, I just try to get as comfortable as possible in the new building and start another streak there.

TOM GLAVINE: I think what I meant is obviously going through the kind of season that I went through, it's not up to my standards. It's not up to what I guess people expect of me, and, you know, when you get into a season like that, you find yourself pitching more, I think to get out of it, to get yourself out of a hole than you do to just go out there and pitch a ballgame to try and win. I think I got caught up in that a little bit. I think I got caught up in that every time I went out there to pitch, I analyzed every little thing I did. If I threw a bad pitch, I had to know why. If I didn't feel comfortable on a particular hitter I had to know why. When you start analyzing everything from pitch to pitch, it makes it awful difficult just to relax and just concentrate on what pitch you're trying to make, and make that pitch to the best of your ability. I think that my last three starts, I guess I got to the point frustration-wise where I just had had enough and where I was sick of trying to figure everything out. I decided I was going to go out there and take the ball and be as one hundred percent natural as I could be, every pitch I made. If I made a bad pitch, you know, think about something good that would help me make an adjustment on the next pitch, not try and figure out why I made a bad pitch, and throw the next pitch with the intention of avoiding another bad pitch instead of with the intentions of making a good pitch on the next one. I think again, as much as anything, I got caught in the trap of: If I was pitching to avoid mistakes, more so than pitching to try to get people out.

TOM GLAVINE: No. I think my approach has to remain the same, regardless of the situation. Obviously I would much rather be taking the mound Friday in a series that's tied rather an a series we're down 2 in. But that won't change what I'm going to try to do. I have to pitch a certain way to be successful, and circumstances won't change that, and I can't try and do something different because of the circumstances. I can't take the mound on Friday and say: "Well, I'm going to strike everybody out." It's not going to happen. My game plan is what it is, and I have to execute it no matter the circumstances in order for me to be successful. And I think that sometimes you make the mistake of doing that. You look at the situation and tend to pitch more to the situation and go out there and things you know you're good at. That's where pressure has an effect on what happens in the course of a ballgame. Again, you look at the situation, and you try and do something you're not capable of doing.

End of FastScripts….