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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DODGERS v PHILLIES

October 11, 2008

Jamie Moyer

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Workout Day

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jamie.

Q. You struggled a little bit in the last round, you only got four innings in. But traditionally -- I mean, this season looked like you came back strong. What do you do after a start where you're not satisfied against your performance?
JAMIE MOYER: Go back to the drawing board and prepare for the next outing. Results are results, good or bad. I haven't dwelt on it. It's the playoffs. It's a fun time. It's exciting. It's a great opportunity.
We won the last series, that's behind us. We've got off to a nice start here in this series and it will be nice to go out for us to tomorrow and play together as a team and put together a nice game and see what happens.

Q. After all these years, you're still having success, but what keeps you going? What keeps you motivated to keep doing this year after year?
JAMIE MOYER: The situation that I'm sitting in right now. It's something you always dream about and getting to the post-season. I've been there a few times. This is probably the deepest I've been in a post-season. And it makes it all worthwhile. You sit, you dream about these types of situations. As a pitcher obviously you dream about pitching in these types of situations and you just try to make the best of it and play together as a team.
It is work. But I enjoy it. I look at it as a challenge each and every day. But when you get to have this type of opportunity, it makes it all worthwhile.

Q. Is it possible to be an effective Major League pitcher in your 50s and you consider it a goal to prove that you can?
JAMIE MOYER: I don't know. I'm not there yet. There's one person that's pitched into their 50s. So obviously it's not a habit that's been followed. I'm kind of reading into your question. Are you asking also possibly if I might play into my 50s? 45's been fun. Still playing. Still getting to the post-season has been a lot of fun. 50 is five years down the road. I think that's asking a lot sitting here today.
But we'll see where it takes me. You know, five years is a long ways away. But I can look back at 40, 35, and if you were to ask me at 35 if I thought I'd be playing at 40, I'd probably say no. If you asked me at 40 if I thought I'd be playing at 45, I'd probably say no. So we'll see where it goes.

Q. Pitching-wise, what is it that you've figured out that other guys haven't as they get older and their fastball diminishes, because nobody is doing this at 45 the way you are, what have you figured out that other guys maybe can't?
JAMIE MOYER: I don't know that I've really figured anything out. For me, knock on wood, I've been able to stay away from injury as a younger player. I never threw 90, 95 and got hurt and had to relearn how to pitch.
I'll give you a prime example, and a guy who did a good job of it was a guy named Bob Tewksbury, if you remember back a few years, when he was a prospect, a younger player, '90, '91, got hurt, had to reteach himself how to pitch at 83, 85, and he did a real good job of it. But I've never had to take that step back.
There's been many times in my career I said, boy, I wish I could throw 90, but I also feel like looking back on it I'm glad I probably never did because I haven't had to reteach myself how to pitch at a different level. To me it's just an ongoing process of what I have and trying to create some consistency with workouts and using that preparation to what I do on the field and try to find ways to continually get better and maybe tinker with things here and there.
But I really haven't had to change anything drastically as far as the velocity thing. Pitches and things like that, I've added some pitches, taken some pitches away over the course of my career. But I've always relied on being down in the zone and changing speeds and good defense.

Q. Did you ever throw 90?
JAMIE MOYER: No, two pitches added together, maybe. But not one total pitch.

Q. You talked in the past about how you always try to make this fun and turn it into a learning experience. And you're getting closer to the World Series and you haven't been there before. How is this trip -- what have you learned on this trip that's different than, say, last year or other trips?
JAMIE MOYER: Well, there's obviously some simple things and some basic things that I try to focus on each and every day, and that's stay focused on what the task is for the day for me individually, where I am between starts and things like that. We've had a fair amount of distance between starts here lately. So my previous outing I had two full bullpens. This one I did a -- I threw a bullpen and a flat ground.
It's things like that, staying focused on things that I was able to do during the season and try to continue with that into the post-season and not trying to change things or add things that I necessarily may be just making up or think I have to add.
I think the biggest thing is just staying focused on where I am and who I am and what we need to do as a team. And I think for me personally I feel like it's worked but I think it's really worked well for our team and I'm really happy with the way my teammates, the way we've all handled the situations that we've been in, not only during the course of the regular season but here in the post-season so far.

Q. I'm curious what thoughts you have about this Dodger lineup, in particular how Manny relates to it. You've seen him over a long period of time. You go through your match-up, five, six at-bats a year for a long time, and he happens to have some success against you. But not only how Manny relates to this lineup but also how over the years you have sort of dealt with him or tried to sort of think through your match-ups with him.
JAMIE MOYER: They have a good lineup. And I think we saw him -- we played here -- I'd say we kind of -- we played okay but we kind of threw a couple of games away. We had some leads later in the game and we threw a couple of games away. And they won some of those games. But from watching these guys play, the Dodgers play the last couple of months of the season, I think they have an explosive lineup. They have some team speed.
To me they're like a school of sharks. Kind of on the prowl. And if you can keep -- kind of keep them all separated in the pool, you know, it's a great way to go after them. But when they kind of swarm together and they see the blood in the water, I think they attack and they do a very good job of it. And I think it's very evident the way they played the last two months of the season.
Then you throw Manny into that mix, who is a professional hitter. He didn't just prove it here when he came here to LA. He did it in Boston. He did it in Cleveland. He makes people around him better. That's been written about a thousand times since he's been here and been in Boston and been in Cleveland.
But it's about trying to manage their lineup. And I'm not going to tell you any secrets. It's keeping the guys ahead of him off base. Keeping the guys behind him off base. If you have to pitch to him, you have to pitch to him. But I think it's a matter of being smart, being wise to the situation. Pitch to the situation. Pitch to the situation of the game.
And, yeah, he has had success against me. And I'll tip my hat to that. He's a good hitter. He's had success against a lot of people. But the way I look at it, tomorrow could be a different day. And if I can get the upper hand, great. All that matters to me is tomorrow. What's happened in the past, I'll give him that. He's earned that.
But tomorrow the slate is even. And if he has success, so be it. And if I have success, so be it. It's part of the game.

Q. Growing up outside Philadelphia, being in the Big Leagues for so long before you got there as a player, how much does it mean to play for that team? Did you always want to do that as a kid? And what perspective does that give you in that clubhouse being from Philadelphia that maybe some of your teammates don't have?
JAMIE MOYER: As a kid, yeah, I probably did. I grew up outside the Philadelphia area. I watched the Phillies. Obviously it was my home team. We could see them a lot. I watched some great teams play. Had some great players: Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Gary Matthews, Manny Trillo, and Steve Carlton was one of my idols as a kid.
It was very enjoyable to watch those teams play. And I did -- I think as a younger kid would have loved to have played for the Phillies. As I get older, my dream was still there to play professional baseball but I realized, too, picking one team and having that dream come true, that's a crap shoot. But being around long enough and it's come full circle. And I think the opportunity to come back to Philly has been very exciting for myself, for my family, for friends that I grew up with. People I went to college with. I went to college in Philadelphia originally, at Saint Joe.
I think it's exciting for everybody. But having the opportunity to play for the Phillies, a team that I watched, went to a parade when I was in high school when they won the World Series, I can remember being at the parade saying it would be pretty awesome some day to be sitting on those floats as they go down Broad Street. So to see where we are, each time we win a game we get a step closer to that, that's still part of a dream as well.
And to be able to win a world championship, I know I'm putting the cart a little bit before the horse here, but having an opportunity to play in the World Series if that were to happen and if we were to be fortunate enough to win, I think that would be icing on the cake for me.

Q. Curious in the hours since winning last night and the flight out here and the workout today?
JAMIE MOYER: Was that last night?

Q. I'm not sure myself. Do you get a sense of what up 2-0 means right now for this group of guys?
JAMIE MOYER: For our guys?

Q. For your guys, yeah.
JAMIE MOYER: Well, I think I get the sense -- last night, after coming into the clubhouse after the game there was music on in the clubhouse. It wasn't ridiculous. It was music. The music might have been ridiculous but it wasn't ridiculously loud. But I'm really trying to take this experience in after games, win or lose, and just sitting in the clubhouse and seeing how guys are acting and reacting, I'm sensing there's some excitement but not exhilaration like, hey, we just won. It's, okay, we won today but there's still a task here.
And I like that. It's very workman-like. And I think that last year getting into the playoffs and losing three straight with the majority of this group that's here this year, I think that left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths, and me included. And I think there's a far greater appreciation this year for where we are, and there's a better understanding of where we are and where we've come from and, boy, it was really fun last year to get to the playoffs. But, boy, after that third game, boy, it was a big downer in that clubhouse in Colorado.
And I think a lot of people remember that. And I think that's one of the ways we've been able to stay really focused and kind of keeping our emotions in check so far through the first and into the second round here of the playoffs.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Jamie.

End of FastScripts

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