NL DIVISION SERIES: BRAVES v ASTROS

October 8, 2001

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: Same thing we've been saying for the last seven, eight years: Really good. It's a real solid line-up, you know, with some real veteran guys in there and some really great-looking young hitters. Berkman, for me, he's one of the top guys around.

BOBBY COX: Well, a lot of people have said that. We didn't exactly run away with it. But it really doesn't matter, you know. The name of the game is to finish one game ahead of somebody else, and that's basically what we did.

BOBBY COX: I think so. By clinching on Friday night, that allowed us not to have to pitch Maddux or Glavine Saturday and Sunday. You know, we've got our rotation in good shape and rested some of the guys. We have some real warriors out in our bullpen. They've been pitching an awful lot. They caught some breathing room the last few days, so we should be fresh and we should be as strong as we've been all season.

BOBBY COX: I never look at it that way, quite honestly. I look at talent and base my judgment solely on talent. We've got good talent; so do they. They have some of the best-looking young pitchers you'd ever want to see. Two of them are hurt. I know Hernandez is out right now, but I saw him pitch twice on TV and was impressed. And Oswalt, you're looking at a Cy Young winner there one day, real soon.

BOBBY COX: I don't think so. You know, if you make good pitches, you're going to get some ground balls. You make a bad one, generally they go out of any ballpark. This one's smaller. It plays small.

BOBBY COX: My feeling is no. We don't. We never looked at ourselves as the favorite either. I'm sure the people that would seed the teams would have us probably in the middle somewhere - or lower. But I wouldn't.

BOBBY COX: Probably does somewhat. You bet. It's not very often you can get a Miller, a young kid in there, an Oswalt, a Hernandez, one of the other kids, Redding, all on the same team within a year or so of each other. It doesn't happen. The Mets did it one year, and most of them got hurt, you know. They never did see it come through. But it's very similar, sure.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, you got to get up earlier (smiling). 12:15 starts, you know, we've never done that much. We played a game in Minnesota one year when I was with the Blue Jays at 11 o'clock in the morning and also played one at Fenway at 11 o'clock because of the marathon and the Gophers were playing in Minnesota. It's not much difference once you get to the ballpark. Especially in domes, you can't tell if it's daytime or nighttime or anything else. You feel like you're closed in, so it really doesn't make a difference. Especially in a dome, I think. But you start playing games that start at 3, 4 o'clock and stuff like that, and those shadows are really tough. None of the players are used to that.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, I would. Personally, yeah. For me, I sure would. I would prefer 1 o'clock starts and 7:30 starts.

BOBBY COX: Well, he's always amazed me. He's still one of the real great pitchers out there. Never misses a start. You always have a chance to win when he toes it up. He's always prepared. He's already pitched tomorrow's game. He'll have pitched that by tonight going to bed.

BOBBY COX: He pitched real good (laughing). He's gonna hit out there, then come in.

BOBBY COX: I don't know if we had many edges on anybody. The ball's bounced our way quite a bit. There was a series where I thought we really played great baseball and didn't win, and some series where we didn't play particularly well, thought the other team played better and we ended up winning. You never know. We got good veterans on our team, a lot of spirit, a lot of energy. Guys have really pulled together all season long. We could have folded our tent several times during the season and they never did.

BOBBY COX: I wish he was playing for the Mets right now so we wouldn't have to face him. But he's one of the quality hitters of the game. He can really hit. Just like his dad, he had a real simple swing. He just carried his hands right there and hit the ball. There's nothing fancy or anything, you know, that's not intricated into a real good hitting swing. He just hits the ball. You got to give him credit for that. He's one of our true great hitters in the game, I think.

BOBBY COX: Well, there was a time during the season, you know, it looked like the Mets, they didn't fold their tent either. You know, they were a long ways out and they put a scare into our club and Philadelphia at the end. I remember Brian Jordan winning a huge game in New York and one in Atlanta. If he doesn't do that, the Mets might be sitting in here right now.

BOBBY COX: Hey, I'm just pleased that we're here. Nobody else's here but us.

BOBBY COX: Well, I don't know why they would, to be honest with you. We've got a lot of different players that started that didn't start the season with us. We have them in our line-up now and things like that. But we've added pitching depth, too: Seanez, Reed, Karsay. Those are great additions right there. I think our pitching is probably as strong as it's ever been, and I think we can score some runs, too.

BOBBY COX: Well, we didn't know. You know, you take a guy that's 40 years old playing in Mexico late in the league, but he was leading the league by a wide margin. He was hitting about .450. And I can remember Julio when he played for Cleveland as a young kid. He still hits exactly the same as he did then - nothing but line drives into right-center, left-center. He's on every ball. He can really play defense at first base. He's an amazing story and one that you guys should write about. I hope he does well in this series. It's a great story. But he is one of the guys that when you're sitting in a dugout, he's up, you have a lot of confidence that he's going to hit the ball somewhere and hit it pretty hard.

BOBBY COX: I haven't read the paper, so I don't know what you're talking about.

BOBBY COX: I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that. He probably said it after they clinched in St. Louis. Why wouldn't you say something like that? There's nothing wrong with that.

BOBBY COX: Yeah. I like our team. I like our team.

BOBBY COX: I've never honestly figured it out either. But it worked out we clinched two days before; we didn't have to pitch our two top starters. That, for me, is a huge plus going in. Oakland last year didn't get to start with Hudson, and that hurt them. I mean, you don't want to clinch something with 30 games to go probably. But if you can clinch it within four days of the end of the season, something like that, and rest some guys...

BOBBY COX: Well, they had it clinched almost at the halfway mark. That's a tribute to them to keep on playing the way they did, knowing that they had it locked up.