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NL DIVISION SERIES: ROCKIES v PHILLIES

October 12, 2009

Shane Victorino

DENVER, COLORADO: Game Four

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Shane Victorino.

Q. So much talk during the season how you guys hit tons of home runs, you can't manufacture runs. Seems like you've done a good job of that so far these first three games. Can you talk about that a little bit? Is it a different approach at the plate? Is it just the games are more intense, you're more focused? What do you think it's been?
SHANE VICTORINO: Honestly, there's no difference than what I think we did through the season. The results are different, but our approach hasn't changed.
We just go out there. Obviously last night it obviously showed what we were able to do in that ninth inning. Jimmy getting on, I'm moving him over. Chase getting that hit off his knee as everybody's going to say. But Ryan driving them in.
I think we've done a wonderful job with getting guys in in scoring position, which we struggled last full season with, and we've done a great job this year and put ourselves in a good situation.

Q. This is a pivotal game in that if you win it's over and if you don't the momentum shifts. Can you just talk about the team's approach regardless after today and how you'll be prepared if the Rockies were to kind of take that momentum?
SHANE VICTORINO: I don't think anything changes with this team. We just take it one game at a time. That's what we've done all along. I think that's why we're so successful. And we were able to win last year.
I think we take it one game at a time. We don't worry about the next game until today's game is done with. We don't want to look ahead. That's what we've always done. We never look ahead, because anything can happen. Today's game is important and it's about today's game and going out there and winning today.

Q. Since you brought up Chase's hit off his knee, he said last night that nobody said anything so he kept running. And Jerry Meals said a lot of times the player will tip off the umpire by stopping. We all talk about how heads-up Chase is. How about the fact that he kept going and didn't stop? Do you know many guys that would react that way?
SHANE VICTORINO: I think subconsciously sometimes you just react. A situation like that, I think you smell a hit, I guess you could say, more than anything.
Obviously I know if I hit the ball off my knee and it was going to the pitcher, you better believe I'm jumping around to try to get something, if nobody called it.
So, again, I guess subconsciously the way Chase plays the game, he's a guy that reacts and lets the game dictate itself. And obviously sitting on the bench, I didn't even see it or even think about the ball hitting him off his knee until I saw the replay.
So, again, one, being all of 20 feet from the play, Torrealba didn't say anything. Jerry didn't say anything. You know, again, being right in the dugout looking at the play happening, I didn't see it.
So obviously for a base umpire to see it it would have been very difficult to see it. The guy who had the best chance to see it to me was Torrealba, and he didn't react. So he probably didn't see it right away, nor did Jerry Meals. Again, I think plays like that it's just a matter of instincts, I guess you could say.
With Chase, he's that kind of guy. He's going to play the game hard. He probably felt it but he said, hey, I'm going to take off, nobody is saying anything, and it turned into a pivotal play in the game.

Q. Charlie has thrown the kitchen sink as far as how he's using the bullpen. Being in the field, what's been your reaction? Brings in Ryan in the situation yesterday in the seventh inning, bringing in Blanton and Happ in from the bullpen. What's been your reaction as Charlie has gone for broke in all these games so far?
SHANE VICTORINO: It's about winning. Whatever he needs to do. Again, these guys got moved to the bullpen.
I said it last night: I'm sure Joe Blanton wants to be a starter. I'm sure Pedro Martinez wants to be a starter. I'm sure J.A. Happ wanted to start the game; obviously he got the ball.
As a starter and you're going through the season, you do well, you want to be the guy that gets handed the ball.
Obviously they decided to go with other guys, and situations call upon them to come out of the bullpen and, like I say, you throw everything out the door.
I don't care if you're a Cy Young winner or a guy that went 0-10 in the regular season, it's about what you do now. When you come out of the bullpen and your name's called -- for instance, last night you brought up Ryan Madson. As I walked by him going to the bullpen and he comes running in, I saw smiling and he was laughing, I'm thinking to myself, Why are you laughing about it? This is a big situation here. But that was his way and his expression of how to control his emotions.
And obviously it worked out for the best. We kept that inning to a small inning. It could have got a lot worse and they got the sac fly out of it and tied the game. But could have got a lot worse, first and third, nobody out. In a situation like that with some of those guys coming up, it was definitely big.
Again, this team, we just go out there and we try to do what we're called upon to do and go out there and do the best.

Q. Getting back to like the ball that may or may not have hit off Chase's knee, would you like to see a situation where those kind of things could be reviewed, whether it's them or you guys, or do you think that might slow the game down too much?
SHANE VICTORINO: No, not at all. In the game of baseball, it's about -- with the instant replay coming about, you know, it's tough as a player, I think, to think about some of those things.
Yeah, obviously for us we're on the good end of that. Sometimes you're going to be on the bad end. But, again, if you replay every single play we'll be there -- last night's game, for instance, went over four hours. You start reviewing every play or every close play, you could have reviewed that ball off his knee. You could have reviewed the play at first. Start reviewing every play, the games will turn into six-, seven-hour games. Nobody will sit in the stands for that long.
Everybody's human. They're umpires. They're human. We're human. Everybody makes mistakes. Obviously sometimes mistakes count as a good thing and a bad thing.
Obviously I'm not trying to make excuses for anybody. But, again, you start making every play reviewable, that's why these guys are out there.
They go out there for one reason; that's to umpire the game, to use their best instincts, best judgment. Yes, sometimes you get upset and calls go against you. But I always say they're human and they make mistakes and they're doing the best they can. They try to go out there, do the best they can, do the job they're called upon to do.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Shane.

End of FastScripts

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