NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS v BRAVES

October 13, 1999

Bobby Cox

Kevin Millwood

Eddie Perez

BOBBY COX: I never liked to do that too much. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and give it a go and throw it all out on the table and try it. With a guy like Rock coming in, I know Ventura. He's like Olerud. Both of them hit left-handed, and Ventura can hit it out of the ballpark, too. Just took a chance, and sometimes you take chances, they work out, and sometimes, they don't.

BOBBY COX: I had my mind made up he would pitch one inning or part of one. We kicked the ball around and he threw quite a bit. I was hoping he could get a full inning today. And I just made my decision that inning. I thought this would be the ballgame, if we get him out now, we'd probably win it. And I made my decision to use John. I knew I had him in my hip pocket.

BOBBY COX: No, he wanted to throw.

BOBBY COX: He's been throwing high numbers this year.

BOBBY COX: We may not do it the rest of the playoff, I don't know. I don't know. We've had rest. Kevin had six days' rest coming in here; four after his one inning, and Maddux had six days' rest and three after his one-hitter. Smoltzy is going to have two after his one inning, but he's going to have about six days, also. The numbers and the days and everything, the rest periods, it's good.

BOBBY COX: That's just it. They do have good makeup, and they're not going to panic and get scared out there. Mad Dog relieved last year in San Diego and saved the game for us, a critical game. Kevin's performance was his first one. Smoltzy, that was the first time he'd ever done it. I don't know if Glavine has ever done it, I don't know. But you have to have a good makeup and you have to be kind of special. I'm sure a lot of pitchers could do it, but these guys have pretty good stuff, too. You kind of want to get them in there; it's not a desperation-type thing. But there was rest in there. When Smoltz was on rehab in the minors, he pitched on two days' rest. When he got going, he was good to go.

BOBBY COX: I think when you have the opportunity to win, you better grab a hold of it, yeah. If the game had been tied, somehow they had tied it up in the 8th, I wouldn't have pitched Smoltzy, at all. We had other guys in the bullpen that could get him out, too. But it was a critical part of the ballgame, and once we still had the lead going in, yes, I wanted to go ahead and grab it, you bet.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: I didn't feel quite as sharp as I did last time. Seemed like I was getting behind a lot of guys. I thought my curve ball wasn't where I wanted it to be, and my slider was good at times, but at other times it wasn't. By far, I didn't have my best stuff today. But I was just telling myself to keep us in the ballgame and give us a chance. And the longer the game went on the better I felt and the better my pitches got. Like I said, I just tried to keep us in the game and give us a chance to put some numbers up on the board and win the game. And that's what we did.

BOBBY COX: Well, we learned to glue our feet to first base (laughter). You have these meetings, and you go over the pitchers, their moves and things like that with the whole ballclub. And we knew; we were talking about he has a real good move, a good one. And we always have a lot of players that speak up. Ozzie Guillen, coming from the American League, said it's not a real good one, it's a great one, and he'll pick you off. I told Gerald and the guys: "When you first get up there, you're not running. His move is good." It's borderline, but we weren't stealing; so it isn't our fault.

BOBBY COX: It's better than going 0-2. Each one of these games is filled with so much pressure. You're trying to win one game at a time, and that's all we're trying to do.

BOBBY COX: I talked to Charlie; it was close, real close. Even if it was a balk, it wouldn't upset me. We were wrong. We weren't going anywhere.

BOBBY COX: 45 degrees between home plate and first base. It's close. He's an experienced guy, and he's going to get away with a little bit more than normal. He's got a good one. He's got the best one I've seen. Andy Pettitte has the other one.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: I think it's like Bobby said. We wanted to jump out ahead of these guys and put the pressure on them while we were at home. Now that we've locked it up where we know if we have to, we can come back to Atlanta. But I think going to New York 2-0 is going to give us a lot of confidence, and maybe it will make those guys press a little bit.

BOBBY COX: Did I have? My stuff is always the same.

BOBBY COX: It could be bad, too, I guess. I had my mind made up before the game started what I could do and shouldn't do and things like that with our pitching staff, yeah. And our pinch-hitters, too. We got into a situation that we had to do what we did.

BOBBY COX: I would have made a double-switch if I was going to let John pitch the 9th inning. I didn't. My mind was made up. I pitched Olerud; we'll walk Piazza, and get Ventura, and that's it for John.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: Not really. Got the pitcher up, and he's been in the American League for a while, and you don't expect those guys to be able to swing the bat real well. And I guess what he was trying to do is get two guys in scoring position for Henderson. And that's what he did. He did his job, and it's my job to get Henderson out after that. I made a good pitch on him. And Boone, I made a good play and got him out. I wouldn't second-guess that move. I think if I was managing, I would probably have done the same thing.

BOBBY COX: Javy put up numbers last year, hit .300 last year. And he's not an out guy by any means. He's a great defensive, skilled catcher that can catch and throw and work the pitchers, and he can hit, too. He is probably not going to hit 35 or 40 home runs like Javy could, but he might. He can hit good pitchers. I've seen him in playoffs before, and going down the stretch off big-time closers. So it's not unusual for Eddie to hit a home run or drive in a big run. He's done a fantastic job, just super.

BOBBY COX: Yeah. We were getting some base hits, but we weren't going anywhere. It was impossible to hit-and-run against him, because you can't get off the base; you couldn't steal. The only thing that I was going to do that I didn't do, because a pitch was never thrown home until Gerald got picked up, was bunt him over. He's very difficult -- I can understand how he can throw low run-scoring games. I think there's been one stolen base off him all season. And somebody guessed right, probably. But he's very difficult. Yeah, we were trying to talk it up. We were kind of putting ourselves in the hole by putting guys on and getting picked off.

BOBBY COX: No, no, I don't think so.

BOBBY COX: No, that was not good. We'll talk about that, too. The fact is we made some -- we got picked off, and we shouldn't have gotten picked off. We knew going in what the guy had, and I guess we just didn't believe it.

BOBBY COX: No, we weren't really hitting him very hard. He was doing a good job. If we did get a hit or two, keeping the ball on the ground -- and I don't even know what the pitch was. Something cut back over, maybe, I don't know. But he hit it. But, no, the guy was -- he was tough to hit at, I thought.

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