MLB WORLD SERIES: INDIANS v MARLINS

October 22, 1997

Jim Leyland

JIM LEYLAND: No, not really. Devon is fine.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, I think you have that situation where he got some counts, and went out of the strike zone and like he said, he's not quite trusting his hands. He's getting the body going, he's not quite trusting his hands, and he's charging a little bit. And he swung at some bad balls when he had the count in his favor.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, I don't think anybody feels any consolation right now. I think the Series is tied up at 2-2, what's wrong with that? This is the World Series, they won two, we won two. It's pretty good, I think. We know we're going to play again in Florida, we're not thinking about that, we're thinking about playing tomorrow night. So like I say, this is the way really it's probably supposed to be. The two pennant winners with their respective leads, and we're 2-2 after four.

JIM LEYLAND: There was no doubt in my mind, when we got it to 6-3 we had a shot, but we couldn't stop the bleeding. We didn't get off on the right foot early, and when we did make a little run there, we couldn't stop the bleeding. And sooner or later, if you keep giving a couple and letting them add on a couple, sooner or later you get yourself in almost an impossible situation, that's what happened.

JIM LEYLAND: I will say that I was very impressed with Jaret Wright. He's everything I heard and more. He did throw a more 2-seamers than I thought, I thought he'd flow more 4-seamers, but that's a great arm, with 2-seamer, 4-seamer, breaking ball, and I can tell he's obviously working on his change up. But he has all the ingredients for being a great one from what I saw. I was very, very impressed, and he was popping the ball real good.

JIM LEYLAND: Yeah, we had an ugly inning there. Normally, to be honest with you, the key is normally your starting pitcher, and I think Tony -- I think the change up that Alomar hit confused him a little bit. I think it got him trying to be too perfect with his pitches all of a sudden. I think he threw a decent change up and Alomar hit it in the center, and then he was trying to be perfect. He was bouncing his change up, and he felt like he had to make a perfect pitch every time to get the club out. When he comes in here I have no idea what he'll tell you, but that's what it looked like to me. And normally a good game a dictated by your starting pitcher.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, I'm not overly excited about what we've done, I'm certainly not disappointed. Like I said it's 2 and 2, we play again tomorrow, and we definitely play at least one in Florida, so, yeah, I feel good about where we're at, and I'm sure Mike feels the same way. This is the way it's supposed to be, in my opinion. We'll see what happens, but I feel real good about our club, that's why we're here, and I think we'll be fine. I'm sure Mike feels the same way about his club.

JIM LEYLAND: I think it's not getting the job done. We walked quite a few people. We're pretty high in walks. And that was one of our downfalls a little bit because overall basically I think we've pitched pretty good, but we did walk too many people. And particularly a ball club like Cleveland, or a ball club like ours, and particularly when they have the DH, you know, for me a walk is like an extra out. When you start giving good teams for a -- an extra out, you're going to get beat.