	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

AL DIVISION SERIES: WHITE SOX v RAYS

October 6, 2008

Ozzie Guillen

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Game Four

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Ozzie.

Q. Ozzie, I know it might be tough right now, but when you look back at the season as a whole how will you reflect upon it?
OZZIE GUILLEN: First of all I want to congratulate the Rays and the organization and the coaching staff and the manager did a tremendous job so far. I wish the best for them.
We played hard. I feel proud of my ball players. We went through a lot of tough times. One thing nobody can take away from us, we fight every day. We fight every day. It's not the nice way to leave after you clinch. I think every day we come here we just play hard. We went through tough time. We overcome the tough time. And I just talk to them. Make sure you keep your head up, feel proud of yourself, walk on the street with your head up and feel proud what they did.
It's not an easy season for us, but we do a lot of nice things for this organization and for the players.

Q. You think you guys overachieved?
OZZIE GUILLEN: I don't know because the only thing that we can do just is depending how you look at it. I expect a lot from this ball club. I say when we started this playoff I say we not come to the next round to mean it's another three games left. We not doing the thing we want to do. Is that happy? No. Satisfied? No. I want to be in it longer. But I think the way we fight out there I am pretty pleased the way they did it.

Q. Just along those lines, Ozzie, I mean, you, you know, you guys fought hard, do you think at the end of the day you got beat by a better team?
OZZIE GUILLEN: They played better than us. There's no doubt. They pitched better. They execute better. They got big hits. And that's what I said, I tip my hat to them because they outplay us. We don't have much thing going, only one game we just got something going on. But besides that, they really did a tremendous job against this ball club.

Q. Ozzie, just how did you think Floyd was today? Did he look tired at all? And, secondly, how about the way your pitching staff sets up looking ahead to next season with, you know, mostly the same guys I think?
OZZIE GUILLEN: Well, you know, Gavin is just behind the count most of the game. That's why he got hit. He was behind the count almost every hitter. It's not easy to pitch against any ball club in the Big Leagues when you are behind the count.
And because you swimming against the water. Especially against that ball club, they're going to put the ball in play and that's what they did. I don't think he pitched well.
Next year, I don't even think about next year. I really don't. I let Kenny think about it. Then we have nice resolve from this year for next year. We got a couple guys we search and they have good years. The only guys at the top of my mind we got to give it a chance are going to be Richard. Everybody else I don't know what way we're going right now.

Q. Ozzie, you matched them just about every area but the timing hitting. Would that be safe to say that told the story in this series?
OZZIE GUILLEN: Yeah they got big hits, we didn't. They had huge hits. We only got, what, three, four hits today, two runs. You are not going to win that many games in the short season, in the short post season like that. But we don't hit well. And when you don't his -- Sonnanstine pitched perfect and we not do that either.

Q. Ozzie, in the fourth inning it looked like Floyd was out on strikes on the replay. Then again in the seventh inning it looked like Pena was out on strikes. Do you think moving forward with review, balls and strikes should be reviewed?
OZZIE GUILLEN: That's too much distraction for the game. Major League Baseball trusts the umpire. I respect their call. They've been there for a hundred years. They're wrong and right but they judge and we have to respect that. We just make -- after that we just make a couple bad pitches and we pay for it.

Q. Ozzie, knowing how difficult it is to make the playoffs let alone advance in the post-season does that make you appreciate what you accomplished in 2005 even more?
OZZIE GUILLEN: A lot of people forgot about that. But I think, I said it earlier, 2005 was special just not for me, for everybody in town. But I already got paid for that. I just want to win another one. Unfortunately people forget how tough it is to get to the World Series and win it. People think -- especially here in Chicago people think you go to the World Series like you are going to write a book and you're in. They forgot how much things you have to go through. You have to be lucky. You have to be play in the right places at the right time. So many different things got to go for you to make it what you want to make it. You know what I mean?
Hopefully my career as a manager is still young, hopefully I got another shot to be there.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297