AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ANGELS v TWINS

October 9, 2002

Brad Fullmer

Troy Percival

TROY PERCIVAL: Yeah. Our bullpen has been outstanding all year. They've set me up better than any time in my past career. I've been in the eighth inning four times this year coming in because those guys have been so good. You know, you get into a situation like these playoffs where you give us a lead, all we got to ask out of our starters is get five good innings, hand it over to the boys and let them get their work done. It's a lot of fun for me to sit and watch.

TROY PERCIVAL: No, there are a lot of good hitters. They're tough to get, especially right now. A lot of those numbers were from 1995 to 1999. This team, right now, they're throwing at you, if you don't make quality pitches, they're going to get you. There's a lot of thought as to what I'm trying to do out there, sometimes climb the ladder. They're tough to face. I go out there, throw my pitches and you take what you get.

BRAD FULLMER: Our line-up's deep, top to bottom. Everybody's had good years. We've been swinging the bat well as a team for a while. You know, last night, we got to tip our hat to Joe Mays, he pitched a heck of a game. You know, we hadn't played for a few days. Maybe that had something -- you got to get acclimated to The Dome. He pitched well. Tonight, we got it going a little bit, the way we've done it all year, put together some hits then get a couple long balls.

BRAD FULLMER: You know what, somebody brought that to my attention today. I knew I had gotten some hits. I don't know why, I can't explain it. He's been one of the best pitchers in the league the last few years, and it's just one of those weird things where you happen to see the ball good from a certain guy. And, you know, maybe I'm on the same page ass he is for a lot of the time. So, you know, I was just, in that situation, man on third, less than two outs, I was just trying to stay, you know -- use the middle of the field, stay back, use my hands and see the ball. I chased a bad pitch 2-0, I was just trying to stay back and trust my hands there. I got a pitch up in the zone a little bit out over the plate and went and hooked it.

TROY PERCIVAL: My approach was go out there and throw a good pitch to get ahead of him. I was trying to climb the ladder against him, and he kept fouling off. He was right on it. I knew that he was right on it. I knew I had to brush him back off the plate or come up with something off speed. So I went ahead and went with Bengie, Bengie made the call to throw - I don't know if you want to call it a splitter or change - depends on what you look at my grip - I make it up every time. It was changeup, I said, "I'm going to try to throw it in." If he does see it out of my hand, the only thing he's going to do is pull it foul. It came back nice over the inside corner.

TROY PERCIVAL: Check me out.

TROY PERCIVAL: In the playoffs, it doesn't matter. I'll come out in the seventh. I don't know if I'll make it to the ninth, but I'll come out whenever you ask me to. I don't know if I've become a four-out pitcher after the whole debate in New York. I come out when Scioscia asks me to come out.

BRAD FULLMER: Well, you know what, certainly we don't come into any games, you know, expecting to lose. But really our job was to come here and win one out of two on the road. So we've done that. We bounced back. We're a resilient team. Nobody panics. We lost last night, but, you know, nobody's mood changes, we have a good time. We joke around. So we're going to be going back home, and our fans have been unbelievable for the last couple months. So I'm looking forward to it.

TROY PERCIVAL: I think our whole pen has taken on the attitude of attacking hitters. I've tried to talk to guys about, "Don't go out there and try to nibble first pitch, you know, try and throw stuff two, three inches off the plate." I'm saying, "Go out there, throw good quality strikes early in the count and move it off." The guys have been so good at that. Schoeny, once he came into the bullpen, started attacking hitters. A 92-mile-per-hour sink from a lefty is tough. Donnelly gets ahead of hitters. You can see that from his stats, he's the best in the league for coming in with people on base. He attacks hitters, stays aggressive, doesn't try to do too much. We avoid the walk when possible and really try and bear down aggressively on all the hitters.