NL DIVISION SERIES: BRAVES v ASTROS

October 9, 2001

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: No, they had the chance to close it right then. We brought in our closer in the eighth, too, to pitch two full innings. Smoltz had had four days' rest, complete days. This was the fifth day, so he needed to get in, didn't throw a lot of pitches. No, they did absolutely the right thing. Are you kidding?

BOBBY COX: Any time you get a pinch hit, like the tying run, a double like that, it kind of gives the ballclub energy, any time somebody pinch hits and you get a base hit and you think you're going to get a good rally going. Today we did. We got lucky and we did.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, he hardly threw any pitches. He threw like a normal one inning. He'll be ready to go tomorrow and probably all three if we have to. If the games are played, he can go three in a row also.

BOBBY COX: Well, we've always had good pitching. So have they. But the ball bounces our way probably a little more. I thought Maddux threw as great a game as he's ever pitched in his life. He didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but it was unbelievable. The game he was pitching, he had given up three runs. Didn't make any sense. Kind of like Miller. Miller threw great, too, as good as he's ever going to throw. This ballpark plays small - really small.

BOBBY COX: They have really picked it up a notch. I really feel good about our offense right now. They're swinging and they're battling the pitches, not swinging at as many bad balls, having good at-bats. They're scoring runs right now. We didn't score a lot of runs early in the year. But for the last good while now, we have put some good runs on the board.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, we really didn't know, you know, we're getting Julio out of the Mexican league at age 40. But he was leading that league in hitting. They were in the playoffs. He was hitting over .500 during their playoff system, too. I remember Julio when he was a young kid in Cleveland when I was in Toronto with the Blue Jays, what a great hitter he was. We stuck him in and he's been there ever since. He is one outstanding hitter still. I was telling the writers the other day, I hope he has a good series. He is a huge story, I think. You need to get with him and talk to him. He's a great kid. Knows an awful lot about hitting.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, he's almost been 100 percent perfect. So, you know, you figure when you put him in there, it's over. That's a great feeling for a manager. I feel that way with John Smoltz.

BOBBY COX: Yeah. We look at that stuff (pitching matchups) all the time, too. But that doesn't dictate whether or not you pitch to a guy or whatever. Some of those are over the course of two years back or something. Chipper can hit anybody. You know, it was a pitch he could handle. And Wagner, as we know, generally -- they feel like we do on Smoltz. When Wagner comes in a game, the game's over. But even Smoltz gave up a home run today, too.

BOBBY COX: Well, I don't know. I can remember a year ago, I guess, Galarraga was following Chipper in the line-up. Wagner was a little wild. I wanted Chipper to go ahead and hit 3-0 and he popped it up. So... I guess he figured he'd maybe jump on the first good-looking pitch he sees.

BOBBY COX: Well, we didn't have much last year. We got there, we thought we had a good team. We went home very quickly for the very first time. It boils down to pitching and timely hitting. If you got pitching, you're gonna hang around.