NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 6, 1999

Bobby Cox

Kevin Millwood

KEVIN MILLWOOD: Yeah, it has just got to be the best. I think after this one - the other one-hitter in my career last year, but to do it in a playoff game, I think we needed a big win today. It was probably the biggest game I have pitched in and so I would have to say it is my best performance ever.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: I think about the second or third inning I threw a few sliders and a couple of curve balls in there and they were both pretty good and had good control of them, had a good break on them. From then on I knew if I threw the right pitch and kept them guessing a little bit, it was going to be a pretty good ballgame.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: A good pitch for me or him? (laughs) It was a mistake. I was trying to go away and I threw it right over the middle of the plate. A good hitter like he is is going to hit it. He is going to hit it hard and that is what he did. But you know, it is probably one of the few mistakes I made all day, but when you can come out from a ballgame and say you only made one or two mistakes, you usually are going to have a pretty good game.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: I think the big -- I don't get real excited. I am pretty low-key. I don't get too up or too down over anything. I think about the 8th inning I started getting real excited out there. I had to calm myself down. Had to walk around a little bit and kind of turn it down a notch. I got the first out of the 8th, I was pretty pumped up. I started throwing a few balls off. I had to back off a little and calm myself down. That was probably -- the biggest difference was excitement for me and I had a lot of energy running.

BOBBY COX: It is tough because we have played so many post-season games and I'd rate it right there with Glavin's 6th game against Cleveland, probably the one-hitter or two-hitter, whatever it was, shutout, right in that category, I think. Kevin was really good. He has been good all season long and he was really good today.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: Not at all. Man, I slept pretty good last night. I was pretty glad to -- I thought during the day yesterday -- I thought it was going to be kind of tough to get to sleep and I think some of that nervous energy I worked up during the day kind of wore me out, I slept good.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: Who wouldn't be in this rotation? You know? You got guys that won seven Cy Youngs, I mean it is kind of tough to be a high-profiled guy around them.

BOBBY COX: I didn't see it initially, our players saw it and Pat, they were yelling "pine tar all over his pants," it looked like pine tar. I don't know what else it could have been, but -- so I told Ned, our third base coach, when he went out because everybody was, you know, saw it in the dug out to ask him to check it. Vida Blue used to do that too. I have no clue. Bruce (umpire) said it wasn't. I never saw him go to it. Last time he pitched against us he didn't have it on there.

BOBBY COX: It would be nice to be able to dip your hands in some water or sticky stuff any time you wanted to for slippery fast balls or breaking balls. This time of year, it wasn't today because it was moderate temperature, but the colder it gets the more you lose the feeling because it gets very slick. It is an advantage if you can have your hands a little sticky, tacky to grip the ball. But it wasn't a big issue, believe me. Whatever Bruce said that is what we were going to go with.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: Yeah, I don't think I was ever intimidated. I think the biggest reason is because nobody ever made me feel intimidated. I came in here and I came up from Triple A in 1997 and I come in here and these guys are great. They just start helping you out right away. You can go out and talk to them about pitching or whatever you want to talk about, and they are going to try to help you. They want to have the best team they can and they want to try to make people better. Any time you can go up and talk to a guy and kind of relate to him, I don't see how you can be intimidated.

KEVIN MILLWOOD: They got great coaches. That is the bottom line. Everywhere you go in the Minor Leagues you got a good pitching coach, and there are guys that have pitched in the Big Leagues, and who better to learn from then a guy that has been there. That is what you are learning from everyday.

BOBBY COX: I think really after about the first four, five starts this year Kevin really got on a roll where he was just dominating every ballgame. I don't know how many games Kevin went into this year with no-hitters in the fourth inning, the fifth inning, the 6th, it was almost a routine deal that you'd look up on the scoreboard and the other team didn't have any hits in the 5th. Good indication how he was throwing. He is really -- 17 games was a lot last year, but kind of like Tommy Glavine, Kevin could have won probably in the 20s this year pretty easily with a certain amount of runs. Tommy two years ago won 14, I think, and seemed like to me should have won 30. Kevin really is a dominating pitcher. One of the dominating guys in the League right now.

BOBBY COX: He would be ready to go. You bet. Especially in Games 4 and 5.

BOBBY COX: Those first two at-bats weren't bad, they were horrible. I went over to Andruw when he came off the field after I said, "Look, you are going to get two more at-bats today. Get your head up. You are going to get two basehits. Let's go." Because I never see Andruw down. He was a little down after that inning and you know, they were not good at-bats. He swung at balls the first pitch that were way out of the strike zone, both of them breaking balls. He is a lot more disciplined than that. He came through and I was never so happy to see him and Boone, Klesko and Jordan, do some damage today all four of them hit the ball good.

End of FastScripts….