AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RED SOX v YANKEES

October 15, 2004

Mel Stottlemyre

MEL STOTTLEMYRE: El Duque wasn't -- yes, he was. I'm sorry; he was starting tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll go with Kevin Brown and tentatively we have El Duque scheduled for Game 4. I can't sit here and tell you that there won't be a change in that. I doubt very much that there will be. But Joe and I always take it one game at a time. Kevin Brown is going to be our No. 3 starter. We had listed El Duque as our No. 4 starter yesterday before the rain. It's something that we'll probably talk about tomorrow, but I would safely say he's probably still going to be our Game 4 starter.

MEL STOTTLEMYRE: Well, when you went into this series, you think about the need for four pitchers, to keep them on regular rest. And with the off-day now being taken away on Monday, it will, you know, put us in a situation where we'll have to think about what we want to do if the series does go seven games on what we want to do there. We do have some options and I think we are going to wait and explore those options as we go along and see how we do day-to-day. It's been Joe Torre's plan all along and mine as far as pitching goes, we go a day at a time. Certainly I'm not going to look to Game 6 or Game 7. We know there's a Game 3. We know there's a Game 4. We'll just see what happens and try to adjust to the situation just like we did today. The only adjustment we've had to make today with our pitching is the fact that Kevin Brown was very ready to pitch tonight and now he has to go through that again.

MEL STOTTLEMYRE: Well, I know he was ready to pitch tonight, and he was, I think, more antsy than anyone else in our clubhouse. He went back and forth. He's very anxious to pitch tonight and was hoping that it would happen because he's very prepared. I think that he'll have the opportunity to go through the night and tomorrow, start all over in getting himself ready and putting his game face on and getting ready to pitch Game 3. I don't really think it will have any effect on him at all. In this case it may have a tendency to help him a little bit to where he has one more day since the last time he's pitched. A lot of times that's dangerous and too much rest is not good, but in his case, I think it may be a help.

MEL STOTTLEMYRE: Well, I think if we did that and we didn't succeed in getting through the series until the seventh game, well, then probably El Duque would probably be our seventh game pitcher. We would probably not feel as comfortable with him in the seventh game as we do in the fourth game. Primarily, it's been a while since he's pitched. We know what the other guys have done. They will have plenty of rest to pitch Games 5 and Game 6, and you know, we'll just see where we're at if there's a Game 7.

MEL STOTTLEMYRE: We certainly like to hold Mariano to one inning, but the last few times you've seen him pitch, he's pitched 1.1, 1 and a third innings. It's a situation where if we get into that situation where we feel like we need him, four outs is just as easy for Mariano as three outs. It isn't anything you like to do every day on a daily basis, but one of the things that he does, is if he keeps his pitches down to somewhere between 15 and 20 pitches, he's very strong and we feel like that he can basically go every day. And sometimes 20 pitches to him, the way he's throwing right now, it possibly could be one and two thirds, or even two innings.