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NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DODGERS

October 7, 2009

Matt Kemp

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game One

Dodgers Â– 5
Cardinals - 3

THE MODERATOR: We have Matt Kemp and Rafael Furcal.

Q. Matt, your first post-season homer against an ace pitcher, how does that make you feel?
MATT KEMP: Feels great. First inning, got a little momentum in the first inning, and off a good pitcher, got up and gave Wolf a little confidence to go back out there after a rough inning and we went from there.

Q. Matt, could you take us through that at-bat, where you hit the homer off Carpenter?
MATT KEMP: It was pretty fast. Only one pitch. He threw me a -- I was looking for something away just to drive, center field or right center. Gave me a little sinker down the middle and drove the ball to right center and put a good swing on it and it went over the fence.

Q. You weren't intimidated at all by Carpenter?
MATT KEMP: No, I play baseball, too. (Smiling) he throws the ball. He's a great pitcher. We've had a -- we haven't did too well off of him, but tonight we came out with the confidence and everybody as a team had good at-bats and we got the job done.

Q. This is for both of you. What did you guys see different from Carpenter than the other times during the regular season?
RAFAEL FURCAL: I don't think I saw anything. He pitched pretty good and my mentality, especially, I'd say myself, we gotta put an end to a lot of pitchers because when you take it out in the fifth inning, it's the advantage to those guys because can a guy go seven, eight innings all the time, and then be patient and try to hit the best you can.
MATT KEMP: Yeah, definitely we were trying to get them out of the game where it counts and make him battle up there. And that's what we did. We got him in the game pretty early. We got to the bullpen and we started rolling from there.

Q. Does tonight keep you as a team more confident against Carpenter?
MATT KEMP: Definitely. We had confidence coming into this game, two teams going at it. We came out and did the things we needed to do to win the game. Bullpen pitched well and hit well and did everything all around as a team and got the win, and hopefully we can carry it out into tomorrow.
RAFAEL FURCAL: It's tough. When you face a guy like Carpenter and too big like that, you have to go in with patience and let it pitch, let him throw strikes and then make a lot of concentration and try to make something happen. Try to make him pitch as much as you can, because I think if we're on base we've got more chance to win the game.

Q. You guys were both talking about being patient out there tonight, but it seemed especially early like it was important to be aggressive. Could you talk about the importance of that for you guys?
MATT KEMP: We wanted to come out and make a statement. I think everybody was saying we're like the underdogs but it's just two good teams going at it. We played them as a series they got us beat. But we had some pretty tough games that we played them during the regular season.
And definitely we just -- I mean, we have confidence, we have a great team and everything all around as a team we're good and hopefully we made a statement tonight and it's going to be hard to come in here and just try to push us around, because we're ready to go.

Q. You guys did good against two pitchers, Lincecum and Carpenter, how does that make you feel?
MATT KEMP: Makes us feel we can beat any pitcher out there. That's the mentality you're supposed to have as a team. We definitely did that tonight. We got another tough pitcher tomorrow and hopefully we can do the same thing, have the same approach and just have great at-bats and do everything all around as a good team.

Q. Does that tell you a lot about your team, what you guys can do?
MATT KEMP: Definitely. 1 through 8, we always talk about battling and going out there and having good at-bats, and that's what we did tonight. And that's the key to winning games and working pitchers and just trying to make them go out there and make mistakes. And hopefully we just keep doing that.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you both.

End of FastScripts

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