NL DIVISION SERIES: GIANTS v BRAVES

October 5, 2002

Bobby Cox

Keith Lockhart

BOBBY COX: Defense, basically. Keith is one of the better defensive secondbasemen in the game for me and always has been. He was always noted for his hitting when we traded for him from Kansas City, he became the League's premiere pinch-hitter for us for years and there's always a hit or two in his bat, big hits. He and Blanco have gotten as many big hits as anybody in our lineup, to be honest with you. With Maddux pitching, a lot of ground balls , and it played well, too, because the double play turned was a tough one, had to turn back and fired back to Furcal and I shot a bazzucca back, but that was typical the double play.

BOBBY COX: No, I'm never surprised at what he does. A couple years ago or so he led the League in pinch-hitting, so it's still there.

BOBBY COX: Well, that's not the first time we've ever done that. His nail started acting up just a little bit, so it's better if he's not going to be 100% throwing the ball so get him out of there, the way our bullpen has performed this year, and it performed well today with zero runs.

BOBBY COX: Certainly, he has not been wild lately and I didn't think he was real wild lately, except for a hitter or two, maybe. I thought he threw excellent today. You're not going to have a better fastball or breaking ball than he had, and the change-ups he threw to the left-handers that were in the lineup were unhittable. Just had the one tough inning. Our game plan was to try to hit -- when he threw them we could hardly hit them. Sheff just missed in the first inning hitting a two-run homer. We had a lot of hits like they had in the first ballgame against Glavine. We had a bunch of those today ourselves. We didn't really hit them, but they are base hits.

KEITH LOCKHART: Mainly he's a sinker/slider pitcher. I was expecting sinkers so my main game plan was just to try something up the middle. I kept my hands back a little bit. Kind of got it pretty good, when I first hit it, region I kind of just stood there. I thought I hit it better than that, and I looked at the flags and they were blowing out and then he started running towards the wall and as soon as I heard it hit the tin, I was pretty excited.

KEITH LOCKHART: Well, everything happens for a reason. The way things have played out this year, coming to spring training as a Minor League free agent and making the club, and just mainly pinch-hitting when a couple of guys got hurt, I ended up filling in in the early part of May. We started playing well. We started catching the ball. We started to continue to get good pitching and things got turned around. I've always feet pretty comfortable in post-season when I had a chance to play. I feel like I'm in the right spot. Bobby has had a lot of confidence in me the whole time and I'm just glad I can give something back to them today.

KEITH LOCKHART: You know, I was not really looking. You could see it pretty easy, just from the dugout. I was actually, on the bench at first. Bobby had Matt up there to pinch-hit. So once Vinny got a hit, I went up there and I was surprised he didn't make a move.