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MLB WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES v RAYS

October 21, 2008

Scott Kazmir

ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA: Workout Day

Q. Just looking at your numbers, you had a great month after the injury earlier in the year and then you kind were up and down the rest of the year. We haven't seen you all year long. Joe said you went through stretches where you weren't finding the location, is that what the key is for you?
SCOTT KAZMIR: For the most part, yes. It was mainly just location, primarily location of my fastball, where I felt like if you don't really have that, you get behind in the count and you can't work the other pitches in. So that's kind of how it got me in trouble on previous outings.
So I think the fastball command, if that's going good then you end up having a fairly good day.

Q. Obviously the Rays became a big story pretty quickly with your start. But when you went into the All-Star Break on that seven-game losing streak, and people were saying they're slipping back to where they've been, how did you guys get refocused?
SCOTT KAZMIR: We're just a very loose team all the way around, so it didn't bother us too much at all, when we went on a little bit of a skid. We prepared ourself. We knew everything was going right at the time. There really wasn't one game that kind of didn't go our way, so we knew we were going to go through a stretch like that. It actually came at a good time. It was right before the All-Star break, so we got a chance to kind of get away from the game for a little bit for these three or four days and kind of regroup.

Q. Did you make a conscious effort before your last start in Boston to decide to throw more sliders? Is that part of what you're thinking about tomorrow?
SCOTT KAZMIR: Sure, sure, definitely. It kind of seemed like for pretty much the entire season that I was a little tense in throwing my slider, because it felt like I wasn't -- it was tough to be able to get out there and get extended. So with this last start that I have, I kind of just wanted to establish it early and get a good feel for it early in the game, and it helped me out in the late innings. I ended up getting more comfortable with it early in the game, and used it in late situations, even behind in the count to get hitters out.

Q. When you got the win in the All-Star Game did you have an inkling or dream at all that you were setting yourself up for Game 1 at home with you pitching again?
SCOTT KAZMIR: You know what, Longoria and Navi and I talked about it when we were here. We knew that this game that we were playing really meant something to us because in the long run it would really give us an advantage, hopefully advantage for the World Series. You couldn't ask for anything more, especially the way we played here. So in the back of our head, we knew how much this game meant to us as a team, as an organization.

Q. You mentioned some of the tough years here, and the empty buildings. What does it mean to you to get the opportunity to pitch in a World Series like this and what does it mean to you?
SCOTT KAZMIR: It means everything to me, it really does, especially for this city. It's pretty much worth the weight, you could say, for what we had to go through the past four years, and you're not really having a winning season, and always kind of in a rebuilding stage, and whatnot. So it's worth everything right now being in the World Series, after three or four years of getting everything together.

Q. Are you preparing for this game any differently than your last three playoff starts, either physically or mentally?
SCOTT KAZMIR: I'm not going to treat it any differently at all. It's going to feel like a regular game to me. I'm going to go with my same approach, which is attack the strike zone, I've got to use my fastball as much as I can, mix up my pitches and keep them off balance.

Q. Preparing for a team that you haven't faced in Spring Training, how do you do that? Do you look at videotapes, do you look at old games? What do you do?
SCOTT KAZMIR: We look at video. There's a lot of paperwork that we look at and to kind of figure out people's, hitters' tendencies, and whatnot, and Hickey and I, we've went over it a little bit. We're going to go over it more tomorrow before the game. And Navarro and I will talk and communicate and see what our game plan is going to be like and everything. And just talk around to different players. There's some guys that have been in the National League and faced these guys before. So I'll ask Wheeler, ask a couple of the guys to get a feel for what they thought would get certain hitters out.
So it's just something where you just have to go based on the scouting report or what someone tells you, because you really haven't faced these guys before.

Q. How will what you accomplished in that last start against Boston set you up coming into the World Series?
SCOTT KAZMIR: It's definitely a confidence booster, going into this next game, because it kind of felt like I didn't have too much pitches. It felt like I had one pitch and my secondary pitch was a change-up that I didn't really feel too confident in. And with this last game under my belt, it felt like all the pitches were working good, everything was feeling comfortable for me, and I was able to throw all my pitches, even behind in the count, and be able to work both sides of the plate. I feel like I can feed off from my last start.

Q. You and Hamels came out at the same time. You were taken very close in the draft. And I believe were compared, both left-handers and all that stuff. Have you followed his career at all or measured against him as time has gone by, do you know him at all?
SCOTT KAZMIR: I said hi and bye a couple of times. But for the most part we actually have been compared by Baseball America and a couple of other things I was reading as I was coming up through the minors. Seems like we were pretty much in every single league going through the ranks. I got to see quite a bit of him and kind of follow his career a little bit, just because of another left-hander and you just see what he's doing and see what's working for him, maybe you can use that to your game. And I've seen a lot of him. He's a great pitcher.

End of FastScripts

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