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NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS v METS

October 5, 2006

Paul Lo Duca

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Game Two

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Paul.

Q. No double plays at the plate tonight?
PAUL LO DUCA: (Laughing).

Q. The cold air or the wind was keeping the balls in a lot from going out, home runs, there were three shots, including yours to left, that didn't quite go out as far as you thought it might have went. Talk about some of your at-bats tonight.
PAUL LO DUCA: Well, the ball I hit, I just missed it. I wasn't more upset. It's probably not a home run any other time. The ball Cliffie hit we thought was a home run. Cliff said he thought he crushed it, too. The ball wasn't carrying too well. But the ball Betemit hit obviously went out.
Tommy did an unbelievable job. He commanded both sides of the plate. He had the best stuff he had all year, I really felt. He was dominant all game.

Q. Did you ever have a crowd chant your name?
PAUL LO DUCA: This is exciting. The fans here have been amazing. The electricity is louder than you can imagine. This is for my first postseason, it's been unbelievable.

Q. Can you talk about the way you guys scratched across runs tonight. Last night it was with the long ball, tonight it was a lot of sacrifices and stuff.
PAUL LO DUCA: I think this ballclub obviously has got a great lineup. We can score a lot of runs. Tonight I think we showed you how we can do it. We run the bases well. We did the little things. Endy Chavez started off with a drag bunt. Valentin had a key bunt, too. Tommy did his job. I mean, Jose had a great at-bat to get Endy in. We did the little things tonight and that's what we need to do. We know we can score a lot of runs. Some nights when you have tough pitchers out there, you have to do the little things and that's what we did tonight.

Q. Was there anything in Glavine's demeanor that gave you an idea what he'd do tonight?
PAUL LO DUCA: Not really. I just knew in the first couple innings he'd be good. He was throwing his fastball. He didn't miss his spot. I remember one pitch to Kent was a changeup. Other than that, he threw every pitch he wanted to. He had unbelievable composure, made some great pitches when he had to. The one inning, he got out of the inning, he threw a great pitch, a sinker in. He was throwing his changeups to both side. He had a good breaking ball today. You name it, he had great stuff.

Q. Obviously, you're playing the Dodgers, the team you came up with, the team that traded you. Talk about playing them in the postseason, and also about going back to LA for the first time as a postseason player since the trade.
PAUL LO DUCA: You know, it's been a year and a half. There's no animosity there. It's just ironic that we're playing the Dodgers the first time I get to the postseason. We know this series isn't over. They got a good ballclub over there and they're a very streaky team.
As far as going back to LA, it's gonna be fun. I still got a lot have of friends there. The fans there were great to me when I played there. It's different, though. Maybe know a couple guys over there. I know it's only been a year and a half.
But the organization was good to me, and I grew up, you know, in that organization. But things happen for a reason. I ended up in a better situation. I love it here.

Q. You guys, you know, scored a lot of runs this year. Tonight you were able to play small ball, take advantage of mistakes, move runners along. Is that kind of encouraging, that you can win games more than one way, you don't have to outslug teams? You can play little ball and beat teams in multiple ways.
PAUL LO DUCA: Well, we can beat teams with our legs, too, you know. We got guys that can run.
But, you know, in all this, no one talks about our pitching. That's the whole thing about it. It always blew my mind all year, you know, questions from the first day of spring training till now was our pitching staff is this or that. Yet we were second in the league in pitching and we got great pitching again today.
So our pitching staff and our bullpen is what wins ballgames. We can score runs but you need the other team not to score runs. Tommy stepped up tonight and our bullpen did again. It's a 25-man team. Everybody in that clubhouse, we're such a close knit clubhouse, we've just gotten it done. We knew Pedro and El Duque weren't gonna be here. It was unfortunate, but we can't sit around and cry about it, everybody's taken advantage of it and has gone out and done the little things.

Q. Do you think those questions about the pitching have been answered yet and if not what's it gonna take?
PAUL LO DUCA: I don't think they'll be answered. Everybody's got questions, what's gonna happen in the next series, what's gonna happen if we get to the next series and to the World Series. I think the guys here, our pitching staff, is taking it as a challenge. Maybe that's a blessing in disguise for this ballclub. I think a lot of us, we're the favorites, and if you turn on, you know, the tube before this series started, we were supposed to lose.
So I think a lot of guys are taking pride in that, and really trying to focus on getting to the next series.

Q. Looking ahead, you're facing Greg Maddux on Saturday, any type of scouting report, early scouting report? You faced him a lot.
PAUL LO DUCA: A lot of guys have faced him. We know he's gonna throw a lot of strikes. He's tough. We know that. We got our work cut out for us. We keep putting good at-bats, like we did today, and hopefully get the starter's pitch count up and try to get into their bullpen. That's been our goal the whole series.

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