NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 9, 1999

Larry Dierker

LARRY DIERKER: Well, the season has been very satisfying for me in terms of the big picture, and I guess the team in some way, what happened with the team is reflected in what happened to me because what seemed like a disaster turned out to be a bump in the road, and, as with so many of our other injuries, you know, Alou and Hidalgo and Gutierrez and Caminiti, all these things seemed like they would be disasters and all of them ended up to be things that we could overcome and so because of that, it's been very satisfying. And I feel great. You know, I felt great, you know, a week after the surgery and I've been feeling good ever since. And I'm really proud of what the guys have been able to do this year in the conditions that we had to do it. I hope we have still got a little bit more in us.

LARRY DIERKER: Yeah. I've been a hundred percent back. I'm about 110 percent back. I gained a little weight over the first month or so when I wasn't working out, but I have been working out the last couple of months.

LARRY DIERKER: Yeah. You can't drive for six months and that's the law in Texas. I've got to wait I figure until December 13th, which is another reason why I like to go deeper into these playoffs because I know once I get home with every day free that it's going to be hard not to drive. With the season going on, all I need to do is get a ride to the park and back. It has not been a great handicap, so I would like to keep this going for another three weeks or so. So my down time in the winter trying to figure out how I'm going to get around is reduced.

LARRY DIERKER: He has a sore elbow and he may or may not be able to pitch. My suspicion is that he won't be able to pitch, but my suspicion is also that if we get a lead and it gets late in the game, it's going to be if he wants to pitch, if he does that and feels good, I would use him. I mean this is a day of no tomorrow. I'm not going to risk his elbow and our future on this one game, but if he warms up and says it's all right, I can't, you know, I have to trust his judgment because the doctors don't think there's anything in there that needs surgery or that it's career threatening or anything like that. We basically have to go on how he feels.

LARRY DIERKER: It's about the same. It seems to be about the same all the time, which I think is one of our strengths that we don't seem to get too upset or too down when we have problems. By the same token, you can't really tell that much difference when we were on the 12-game winning streak. It's sort of a business-like atmosphere, and I think the mood is about the same as it's been all year.

LARRY DIERKER: I slept fine. I mean, I would like to have slept more. I slept from about 1:30 until about 7, but that's not unusual when you have a game at noon. You know, we are all used to night games most of the time and we all are -- our body clocks won't let us go to sleep at 11 just because we have a game at noon the next day. You know, you can't go to sleep till you get tired. Once I got tired, I laid down and went to sleep with no problem.

LARRY DIERKER: Jose has been a dark horse in our own eyes for this season because of what he did two years ago. Two years ago he came up and pitched very well in pressure situations and at that time, his velocity was generally in the 90 to 94 range, and he had the surgery and he wasn't able to pitch much last year and then this year at spring training he was topping out in the upper 80s and we were hoping that, you know, with more throwing and continued health, that his velocity would come back and it has. One of the things about Jose that you have to like a lot is that he's got a lot of poise. He's got a lot of courage. Some guys go out there in that situation and you could just look at them and tell that they are nervous and with him, you don't get that sense at all. It just seems like he's out there to get you out and he's not worried about a thing. I'm sure he has a lot working on the inside, but as a pitcher, I think you either have to show a positive emotion in the way that Lima does or else no emotion. You start to show fear, for me it's like somebody riding a horse. You know, the horse knows if you can't ride and you're not going to have a very easy time of it, but if you get on there, you know what you're doing. Even though the horse is much bigger than the man, the man can ride the horse. Same way it is with a pitcher on the mound. Everyone can see it when a guy is shook up out there and it's almost the signal to the other team, you know, to go; and Cabrera is just great that way. He's got great make up.

LARRY DIERKER: Well, it's probably not that much more difficult to manage. It might be more difficult to win, but, you know, what I'm going to do is operate under the assumption that we don't have him, and I'm going to try to wait through the last couple of innings. If Shane doesn't go all the way by going left, right, match-ups, trying to piece our way through it like we did last year when Billy was out and we had some success doing that when he was out after he got hit in the head by that line drive, and we managed to close out most of the games when we had a chance and it wasn't any one guy. It was just a combination of people and that's basically the situation we are in today. If he does get up in the 8th inning and starts throwing and said he feels fine, then that won't be hard either. I'll put him in. I don't think it will be harder to manage, but it could be harder to win.

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