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AL DIVISION SERIES: TWINS v YANKEESOctober 8, 2009Ron GardenhireNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Workout Day Q. The first question via text: Ask Gardy about Span's development as a hitter. RON GARDENHIRE: Denard Span, I think we've all seen it kind of in front of our eyes. Went from I think last year we sent him down. That's when he became an angry young man, and said I'll show you. Ever since then that's exactly what he's been doing when he came back to the big leagues. He's been proving that he should have been there at the beginning, which is sometimes a good thing. But he's a player, great lead-off guy, knows how to work counts. He is still learning to run the bases as far as stolen bases goes, has great speed, still learning jumps and reading pitches and all those things. Can play anywhere in the outfield. No matter where I put him his offense hasn't changed. His defense is unbelievable. So really good player. Q. How much thought did you give to starting Pavano tomorrow and why did you go with Blackburn? RON GARDENHIRE: Just trying to keep them as close to on their days as we best we could. Actually, originally, if we could have got it done Sunday, we talked about it being really a three-starter type series and being able to use Duensing out in the bullpen. But it didn't work out that way, so we had to make some adjustments. I think having Blackburn pitch his sinker, he's been throwing the ball really well. Every game is really important, so to try to put more to put more importance on one than another, no. But Blacky, it's his time up and we want him out there. Q. Your pitchers are known for pumping the strike zone, for being aggressive. I'm wondering how much of that is an organizational philosophy that they grew up learning that and how much is just these are the styles these particular pitchers? RON GARDENHIRE: That's something we preach first thing you have to to be able to do is throw the ball over the plate and not just over the middle. We talk about working inside-outside. My pitching coach and then all the way down the line, really preach that in the minor leagues, throw the ball over the plate. First thing you have to do is be able to control the fastball, then you can work on your secondary pitches. But it's being able to throw them over the plate, and that's important for us because we preach defense. Catch the ball and get outs when you're supposed to. So if our pitchers keep our infielders on their toes and outfielders on their toes, it works out good. Stay away from long innings by not walking people, make them hit the ball. We feel we can catch it if they hit it. Q. You guys obviously had been struggling with the record against the Yankees, especially here. RON GARDENHIRE: Most teams have. Q. But I mean, the disparity in the numbers doesn't really reflect the disparity in the teams. I'm sure you guys know you can play. Do you think ever -- I don't know if you're superstitious or not -- is there any way to change things up? Change your luck? Change hotels? DENARD SPAN: It's tough. The thing that the Yankees do is it's a continuous pressure put on you, offensively. Because as you go along in the games, these guys are really, really professional hitters. You can't make any mistakes. You can't walk people. And it's a constant -- they put pressure on you. They put pressure on your pitchers, on everything because they have quality at-bats as the game goes along, they get better and better. That's one of the things they've beaten us late, a lot of times. And it's just because they're such good hitters. You look at the number of at-bats, almost every one of those guys have had in their lineups, that's a lot of major league at-bats. That's pretty much it. A lot of late-game losses for us just because they're such professional hitters. If you make one mistake, they get you. Q. Based on how short this series is, what do you need to do differently as a manager, because going 0-2 against this team could be catastrophic? RON GARDENHIRE: Well, I can only put them out on the field and let them play. That's the manager's job is to put them out there, let them play the game, hopefully your pitcher can catch the ball, get a few hits early, go from there. You don't try to change the way you attack things, we have been attacking for a month as hard as we can. We said it going into this, if we have opportunities to run and bunt and do all those things, we get them. CC didn't give us many opportunities to do too much last night. I think we stole one base. We were talking about trying to run on him. You have to get people out there that can run, and it just has to work out. To be able to say I can change it all up, we have to go and do what we normally have done to get here and not change that. And it's hard to do if you have a guy out there like that. I think the guy we're facing tomorrow night is a pretty good pitcher too. It's about getting on the base and being able to do a few things. If we can get on the base and get some people, we can move around a little bit. First we have to get on the base. Q. Have you considered playing Gomez in center and moving Span to right, Kubel to DH. Not getting a whole lot out of the DH anyway, improve your defense? RON GARDENHIRE: We have been looking at a lot of things and that is something I have thought about. Gomez brings another element. Even though his at-bats aren't always quality, he runs all over the place. That's something, maybe a possibility for tomorrow because we've been struggling at DH. Q. With your record here, is it all about atmosphere? How different is the atmosphere here compared to other parks that you play in? Do you think that that plays into it at all? RON GARDENHIRE: No, I don't think it has to do with the team on the other side. That's just a pretty good team. I mean, I wish I had all the answers to say wow, this is why we lose here; this is why we don't win. It's not that simple. We have had our opportunities, we just haven't come up with big hits. A lot of that has to do with the team you're playing against. They're a pretty good baseball team. They know how to win at the end of the ballgames. It's not as simple as it sounds. We've been close -- when we were here earlier in the year, we could have won every one of those games with just one more big hit. So I think it's all about being able to get the big hit. When you need it. Drive in the runs. If you looked at our at-bats and you looked at batting average with runners in scoring position the last time we were here, those four games, I think it was not very good. Hopefully we'll be able to do that tomorrow night and see what happens. Q. Girardi has talked about they went 0-8 against the Red Sox and they kept facing those questions. Can you beat them this year? And the Angels too, how they had to get those monkeys off their back. To what extent can just one victory, do you think, help you guys, especially if you get it here in Game 2? . RON GARDENHIRE: It's the time of year where you really need a victory here. Whether -- you can't afford to lose too many ballgames. Yeah, I think I'm looking forward to seeing how we respond tomorrow. A day off today will be nice. We've been through a lot up to this point. I'm looking forward to seeing how our ballclub responds tomorrow. Maybe a little more life, a little more energy. We'll see. Yesterday they kind of put it to us a little bit and we didn't respond very well. But we'll see. See how we react tomorrow. Yeah, it would be really good to get out of here with a split. That's -- within our reach. We just have to go out and execute on the field and get it done. Q. Ron, you've talked about their late-game offense for comeback. I wonder what you think about how much Hughes has transformed their late-game bullpen to shut down other teams and how much more difficult it makes it even with Chamberlain added to that now for at least this round? RON GARDENHIRE: That's some pretty good arms. Those are luxuries to have where you can go and take a few guys and put them in the bullpen and -- like Chamberlain that's throwing about 98. Looks likes he's a raging bull out there. Throwing the heck out of the ball. And the same way with Hughes. You take these young guys that just can go out there for an inning or so and let it fly with great arms. If they can handle that out of the bullpen, that's a wonderful thing. And that just shows you how strong their ballclub is. There's always a reason why a team wins 103 ballgames. You have to have a lot of ammunition and a lot of different ways to win ballgames. They can make a start last about six innings now with that bullpen. And then you go to those guys. They can shut you down. We've been there. We've been there with our bullpen a few years back where we had that where you give me six innings and we can pretty much stop you. The Yankees have been there. They've proved it this year. Q. Ron, this is following up on Lavelle's question about Span and the fact that you repeated Triple-A, you had lot of guys come through the system, a lot of high school draft picks. How much have you and this organization valued just being patient and letting these guys blossom? RON GARDENHIRE: Yeah, we've been asked that a lot. I've seen certain teams draft people and send pitchers right to the big leagues. You just don't see that very often with us. Taking a pitcher and like a Porcello with Detroit and going right to the big leagues and not spending much time. We have a different philosophy. Our organization always has. We like to run them through the levels and make sure we protect them as much as we can and get them there. You know what? Some people knock it. But it's been successful for us. We've been able to maintain at least a chance to win now for whatever, seven, eight years, nine years, ten years, whatever. Because of that. Because we keep trying to restock our system and let these players get ready and then if we need to fill a hole, we do. It's worked for us. Sometimes as a manager, I'm like, get that guy up here now. You know what, the organization we have a pretty good philosophy about taking care of these kids and I like to see it. Q. Delmon Young had a good last ten days for you. Is that more what you expect with him? How do you assess his season? RON GARDENHIRE: I think you have to look at Dell. He's still what, 23? 24?. 24 years old. Seems like Delmon has been in the big leagues for five or six years. Really he's only played two or three years in the big leagues. He's still learning, he's a young kid. If you watch him and you watch him swing during batting practice and you watch how far the guy can hit the ball in his natural raw powers, his gift as far as arm strength and all those things, this guy has a chance to be a really good player. Sometimes you have to take a step back and say, you know, we're putting a lot on this young man and he hasn't had a lot of at-bats. You know what, he broke on to the scene in Tampa and had a really good year. The expectations went through the roof of how far he can be. So I think he's fighting the expectations still. But I think over the last two or three weeks, we've actually seen some of the things we believe Delmon is really going to do as we go along here. That's driving the ball in the gap. Put it in the seats. He has a chance to be a really good player. He's been just a wonderful teammate. I think we've all seen a total change and an attitude. He's went through a lot this year. He lost his mother. And he's had a tough season. But as far as teammate goes and being enjoyable to be around and then watching him develop as we went along here warm it's been a lot of fun. Q. How worn down is your bullpen from the ordeal from getting here what you had to go through and what -- having today able to freshen up. Bass that's what enough to freshen you up? RON GARDENHIRE: That was needed. We went to Franky because he was one of the guys that hadn't thrown. It was needed last night. Jesse Crain had a little bit of a sore groin last night. Came up before the game. So we backed away from him. I think he's going to be fine. And everybody had thrown quite a bit. Over the last few days, really, not just that game there. We've been using our bullpen a lot. So because of must-wins. So yesterday was one of those situations put Liriano in and hopefully he can get through some innings for us. Stop them. His numbers were pretty decent with these guys. He gave up a homer, but actually did pretty well after that. Hopefully this day off today will give us a chance to regroup a little bit. This time of year everybody says they're ready to pitch. Nathan needed it for sure. That was a bad thing we didn't get to use him. But also a good thing. I think they'll all be ready for tomorrow night. Q. Yes. That's fine. Have you decided on a game three pitcher? If not when will you? RON GARDENHIRE: Yes. My pitching coach I think he dropped a TBA. Pavano will be pitching. They made sure to tell me that just announce Pavano. He doesn't want to answer any more questions about it. Pavano will be pitching game three. Baker four. Q. What was the thought process behind -- RON GARDENHIRE: Because my pitching coach said Pavano. That's the thought process. That's as far as we have to go. THE MODERATOR: Thanks for coming in today. End of FastScripts |
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