NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: PADRES v BRAVES

October 14, 1998

Bobby Cox

John Rocker

BOBBY COX: It's not hard at all.

BOBBY COX: (No answer.)

BOBBY COX: I think it was close, yeah. He just -- he got behind, and had to come in. He went ball 4, and then we went 3-2. It doesn't matter if you throw hard or not, if you get behind, you're going to get hit.

BOBBY COX: Not really. I feel the same way we felt -- I feel the same way as I felt when we were 0-3, the same thing.

JOHN ROCKER: Haven't gotten one yet, no.

JOHN ROCKER: I think 40 at-bats, and I'm not completely inept up at the plate, but not nearly as much batting practice as I should have. The at-bat, those are just pretty much your basically five-pitch, walk, took one hack at a two-out pitch. Probably glad I didn't hit it, because I would have popped it up or something. And no thoughts of ever scoring. I was just actually trying to sit out and wait out the inning. And my baseball instinct sort of took over and I started running. I saw Steve Finley's back, so I knew the ball had got by him. And I saw him, and Ramirez, both turned around, heading to the ball to the wall. And when I got about halfway around I never -- looked at Ramirez to see if he was going to go for the ball. I never saw him, so I just slid in.

JOHN ROCKER: Yeah, I've got a little tick out there. I like to feel, I guess, I'm kind of an all-effort kind of guy. So pretty much after every pitch I throw my clothes and hat and everything in a shamble. I'm up there trying to straighten everything out, feel comfortable again.

BOBBY COX: He's loosening up right now to see how good he feels for today's game, and certainly would be available for tomorrow.

BOBBY COX: Maybe tonight, I don't know until he comes back and gives me the report.

BOBBY COX: We haven't had the situation where I wanted to bring him in yet. I told him to hang with it. He had a great year, and he's fine.

BOBBY COX: Maybe, because we've been behind so often. We've been behind almost the first four games, or all of them. Sometimes we're behind trying to catch up. When you're trying to catch up, you have to do some things.

BOBBY COX: Yes, same thing. I mean we were -- if Cabrera doesn't get a base hit, we're out of bullets again. But you've got to try to win. And that was a tough one, too. But if you keep in mind that Bruce Bochy and Bobby Cox are trying to win ballgames, then you don't have too many problems with other things.

BOBBY COX: Well, Dave would know. He's been in a ton of them. He's probably been in more than I have, as a player. And it's been a good one, yes, because all the games have been so tight. And I guess Monday's game may go down as a classic game, I think. It had so many different varieties all through the ballgame, things that happened and a Cy Young winner in their guy, and our Cy Young Award winner comes in. And it's just -- it was great. I'm just glad in a big game, a classic game, we were the ones that were rallying back. It could have happened in New York last night with Cleveland when it got to 6-5, but that could have ended up just like ours.

JOHN ROCKER: Yeah, it really kind of sort of jump-started my career. I was sort of a 500 pitcher all through the miners. And in Puerto Rico, I didn't get going, but I found my niche.

BOBBY COX: Well, it's been amazing, and his niche is relief pitching, no doubt about it. And he got started in the Arizona fall League, less than 12 months ago. It continued on to Puerto Rico and back to us in Spring Training. And we felt in Spring Training. We felt it would be better if he pitched in Richmond for a while. And he did. And great things were said from Bill Fisher down there about him. And we brought him up, and he's been good from the first day. He was really, really impressive.

End of FastScripts….