NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 10, 2001

Miguel Cairo

Jim Edmonds

MIGUEL CAIRO: Today. When I just get here, I saw the lineup and I was surprised. But you know I'm ready to play.

MIGUEL CAIRO: When I go out there I try to look for fast balls, I know I'm going to get fast balls, he throws hard and I try to make contact. I'm successful because I've been doing that.

JIM EDMONDS: It should pick up. They say every pitch, every pitch counts, every play, every at-bat. The intensity level sometimes is the downfall of teams because you can see some of the guys that are younger, a little intense, a little not taking their normal at bats, guys are going up there and swinging at the first pitch a lot. So you've got to be intense but relax at the plate and have a normal at-bat and take your best at-bat up there.

JIM EDMONDS: I don't know. I don't really see a difference in feeling. I think our last year's team was a little more boisterous. This year's team is more go about your business quietly and play hard and just try to play a good game. As we've said all year long we've missed a little bit in the leadership of Shawon (Dunston) and Eric (Davis), but we've found a new way to go out there and win games without them and just kind of turned into a more blue-collar team where we went out there and played hard and didn't say much. It would be interesting to see how we handle this adversity being down a game.

JIM EDMONDS: Personally, for me it's hard to watch because being so close to him and knowing what he's going through on a day-to-day basis, and every day life. I know he doesn't do as many things as I'm used to seeing him out and around and having fun and things like that. I think he's really -- he's such a big attraction, I think he's almost embarrassed and he wants to become himself again. Everybody has been there. When you have an injury like that, you don't have a spring training or a couple of weeks where there's no pressure where you can really work it out and get back to normal, you're rehabing during the season and guys are making good pitches on you and your at-bats are getting tougher and they're starting to figure out what your weaknesses are. It's hard to rehab during the season, and it's tough for the whole team to see a guy like that struggle. I mean, he is -- he was or is the modern day Babe Ruth. Everybody -- I think everybody in the world wants to see him get back just to bring the excitement of baseball back up. He always has that much pressure on him that way too.

MIGUEL CAIRO: He was throwing a lot of fastballs and he was throwing 96 and 97. That's what we're going to see with Randy Johnson. We're going to see the same kind of pitcher. So I guess just going to try to see it and hit it. That's my approach today.

JIM EDMONDS: I think if you face Randy Johnson in back-to-back starts, it doesn't give you an advantage. Randy Johnson is Randy Johnson; Curt Schilling is Curt Schilling. I think the biggest thing to facing both of those guys is get pitches to hit and not swing at their pitches. Curt threw a great game yesterday. He deserves all the respect in the world for the way he pitched, but I think there are situations where we came up and either swung at bad pitches or took good pitches in situations where we should have done the opposite. You see how devastating Randy can be when you're swinging at a slider that ends up to be a ball most of the time.

MIGUEL CAIRO: First of all, when I got to the team, I was kind of happy to be with St. Louis. So when I got here, I was doing the same thing with Chicago, I was going to be a pinch-hitter, play some defense, and I was doing the same job over there and I was ready to play. And when I got here, I was just thinking the same way, just be ready any time they ask you to pinch-hit or run or play defense and every day I was trying to go out there and try to play the same way. Just be ready to do whatever Tony asked you to do.

JIM EDMONDS: Obviously. I faced him a few times now and the thing about Randy is he's smart, he doesn't throw 100 miles an hour with the same slider over and over. Just when you think you've got him figured out, if you can see it quick enough, you have a chance to put it in play. When he starts throwing a tighter one, it doesn't have the same big break in it. You've got to go up there and figure out what he's trying to do that day, what he feels like doing and you have to adjust to him. It's not so much fun being a lefty playing him certain days, other days you have to just battle.

MIGUEL CAIRO: Two ways, I don't really look at it as trying to get home to win two games. But the old saying goes, you try to split on the road and go home and take your best shot. I don't think we're really thinking about what's going to happen on -- what is it? Friday night? I don't know. That's way ahead of my thinking. We're not really concerned about Friday and Saturday right now. We're going to figure out how to beat Randy Johnson, if that's possible, and go from there. You can't really look ahead at these games right here, you just have to deal with what's going on today. It seems like now every day is an adjustment where you don't know game to game whether you're packing your bags and being prepared to go on the road if you win or lose, so you've just got to deal with what that day brings you and then go from there and know that the only good thing about the game is after today we're going home. That's as far as we look ahead.