NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 6, 1999

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: I think our club realizes we have good pitching. We're liable to come up with a well-pitched game like yesterday, and if we score a couple, we can win it. You'd rather win the first one, that's for sure. But we've rolled off three or four wins in a row before.

BOBBY COX: I think so. I think, you know, all the teams in this year, in the American League and the National League, I don't think you can count any one team out, to be honest with you. I think if the Rangers had any luck in the first and second inning last night -- I watched that game -- with their hits, they could have turned it around and won that thing. It is difficult. First of all, you've got to qualify for them and that's the first step. This series and the next series and the World Series; so there's basically four steps.

BOBBY COX: The reason we had Klesko in yesterday, he hits Reynolds. He's been hitting clean-up since Jordan has had problems. He's hit the ball good in the clean-up spot, and I didn't know how much respect Jordan would get if we didn't put him back in there behind Chipper. He's proven to us his hand is much better. He's hitting the ball, and we'll give it a shot. It's unfortunate he struck out yesterday with the bases loaded; the only strikeout he had. We have confidence in him. I just thought maybe Jordan will make contact, and he's hitting the ball hard and we'll give it a go.

BOBBY COX: He won 17, first of all, last year and that's pretty darned good. This year, I think he won 18, but he's a much better pitcher this year. He's just developed. It's a case of a young kid, the more experience he gets, the better he gets and he picks a lot of players's brains, and Leo has helped him a lot. He knows how to pitch right now. You may see him go up and a lot of times, that's by design, and things like that which he never thought of before; so he's more of a pitcher right now.

BOBBY COX: He's won 14. That's probably subpar for a Cy Young Award winner. But I saw Tommy win -- two years ago I thought he should have won 30 that year. What I'm trying to say, it's hard to win ballgames. You've got to be in the right spot at the right time with the runs. This year, he's been consistent. He's throwing the wall really well right now. I think it's the best he's looked. We feel good about him in Houston. He's mixing the areas of the plate right now better, I think. And he's been strong all season.

BOBBY COX: I don't know all the reasons, but we've had some kind of record in that ball park. I don't know what it was going into last year or the year before, but it was significantly big. Pitching, any time you have the type of pitching we have, you have a chance to win a ballgame. You know, we played good on turf; we always have. That's not a real big problem with our ballclub, I don't think. I really can't give you the answers. I don't know. I can remember years ago I was managing the ballclub. We beat the Pirates 11 out of 12, and really we don't belong on the same field with them. You would have lost a lot of money betting those games. I don't know. I really don't know.

BOBBY COX: That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. We feel we've got hitters behind them him. If we put him on the base, Chipper can do a lot of things on the bases as well. Strategy is strategy, and that's good. Whatever they think.

BOBBY COX: I'm not managing against the Braves. I'm having trouble managing for the Braves right now. I don't know. Houston has got a lot of good hitters in their lineup. It's horde to pitch about one; get to another one, too. We've won 103 games with our hitters; so they are pretty good, also.

BOBBY COX: I can remember in Toronto, I went way out of my way not to pitch to Brett. But he had a guy by the name of McRay hitting right behind him. I remember walking Brett with runners at first and third, and we got a double play, but it was a line-drive double play. Tore our shortstop's glove, but we got a double play. Brett in these days was better than any hitter I saw in my life. There's only a few of those guys walking around, believe me.

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