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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ANGELS v YANKEES

October 24, 2009

Mike Scioscia

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Game Six (Postponed)

THE MODERATOR: First question for Mike.

Q. Mike, not to put you on the spot, but you aesthetically opposed to playing a game of this magnitude in potentially sloppy conditions?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: Kind of put me on the spot here, aren't you?
I think the grounds are going to be damp no matter what happens. If we play tomorrow and Monday I expect it to be the same way. As far as where we are, you know, if it's not raining and it's tolerable, we're going play baseball.

Q. What's your lineup tonight?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: Our lineup would be Figgins, Abreu, Hunter, Guerrero, Morales, Kendrick, Rivera, Mathis and Aybar. With Saunders pitching. Saunders and staff pitching tonight.

Q. Mike, not to put you on the spot, but does second-guessing about things like yanking Lackey the other night, does that bother you at all?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: I think it's great baseball discussion. I'll talk baseball all day long. We've had a season where I think a lot of our decisions are just the fruits of great baseball talk. No, I think at this time you make your decisions and you live with them. Obviously that's one that didn't work out.
But I think it's a baseball discussion. It's all good baseball discussion. As I said then and I think we've had some conversations since, you know, my heart said let John stay in there and pitch, and my head said try to turn Tex around. And that's what you get for listening to your head.

Q. Mike, related to that, on the other side, Joe Girardi is going through his first postseason as a manager. I think it was your first postseason game as a manager here. You made a move in the eighth inning and went to Schoeneweis instead of Percival. Took a lot of heat for that. Joe has taken a lot of heat for pitching moves just like you had with the Lackey situation. Do you remember what that was like and can you describe that, going through that in your first postseason as a manager?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: I remember that event obviously. I was at peace with the decision then. And even the next day I was at peace with the decision. So I think you have the right input. You obviously are doing things you think are going to put your team in a position to achieve and excel and get something done that's going to be a positive. We all know they're not all going to work out. And as we talk about as a staff internally, if someone comes to us any time and asks us a question and we go "Gosh, we didn't think of that," I think we're not doing our job.
And so as you kind of turn things inside out, try to make the best decisions you can. You make them to the best of your ability to hopefully come out a positive. And you live with them. So as far as that event back in '02, we felt very strongly about the role that we could use Percy. We felt very strongly about Schoeneweis' ability to come in and get an out. I feel like we're in a time warp still talking about this. And I think that as I said then, I think that everyone who followed our club every day, there was much less controversy to that call as there was for people who really didn't know how our bullpen functioned.
I think I said this earlier, too, there's not a guy in this room, there's not a guy around that knows the Yankee team better than Joe Girardi. I think as a role of the manager, as our staff talks about, there can't be anybody around that knows the team better than I do or our staff does. So you make decisions along those lines and you have to live with them. And it's all good baseball discussion, though. Obviously, you know, we'll move forward and hopefully have a couple of other things to talk about.

Q. Is the possible use of Weaver tonight or the weather the reason why you haven't declared a Game 7 starter? And are there any other reasons?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: There's definitely some things that we might have to do tonight that's going to affect where we are tomorrow in Game 7. And certainly one of them is Weaver's ability. Jered did a great job in Game 5, to get through that eighth inning. And we might need him to bridge that gap again tonight. And that would certainly -- still looking forward, we want to see how Game 7 would line up to how we're going to piece together the game. And right now there are some variables that we have to wait to see how they play out.

Q. Weather another one?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: Weather, sure, could have an input on it. Yeah.

Q. Along the same lines, Mike, how might Saunders be affected by a start-and-stop type game, play two innings, wait an hour and a half?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: That's not going to help anybody. It's not going to help Andy Pettitte or Joe Saunders. As we get things going, I think both teams are going to feel comfortable with the guys they are putting out there to start the games. You hope it will get to a certain point where it doesn't get fragmented. I think it's going to affect Joe as much as it's going to affect Andy Pettitte. Hopefully we're not going to come to that.

Q. Mike, is starting Mathis tonight, is that riding the hot hand or are there other factors?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: No, Jeff is catching at very high level and swinging bat very well. And I think that as well as he's performed, he's a guy that we want to keep in the lineup.

Q. Mike, do the teams have any input before these games as far as the weather-related decisions or is it all just Major League Baseball that handles it?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: We're kept informed, but I think Major League Baseball has a grasp of all the little nuances that are important, like we just talked about, about losing your starter, how that can affect the competitive balance of the series. It's certainly nothing that Major League Baseball isn't aware of and isn't going to consider. If it's not raining out and conditions are playable, we're ready to play. And we want to play. But we don't have a crystal ball.

Q. Do the two teams voice that concern along those lines like you said? Pitching-wise and stuff?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: We've had meetings. We had meetings before Game 1. We were informed about all the considerations they were looking at. There's nothing new that we're going to bring into any meeting that Major League Baseball isn't already considering. If they say "toe it up" and "let's go," we're ready to play.

Q. Mike, every once in a while Torii will make a bold comment. Is this just him speaking freely or do you think sometimes it's calculated to motivate his teammates?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: Those that have been around Torii, the whole year, his whole career, know how refreshingly honest he is in his comments. And I don't think there's anything wrong with things that he said throughout the season, throughout the playoffs.
He speaks his mind freely, and we speak our mind freely, and I think at times maybe it might sting a little bit. But he's not doing anything but trying to -- there's not a guy in that clubhouse who wants to win more than Torii. And I think that he's been very frank with me in our conversations. Our staff, every player that he's mentored. And obviously, in some of his comments in the press. And it is what it is. There's nothing -- I don't think there's anything that's a negative about it. At times I think our guys have taken some things to heart and moved forward with it.

Q. Were there any other lineup changes or adjustments that you guys pondered seriously before you made this lineup?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: You're always looking to try to get some kind of groupings that maybe are going to work and maybe keep working. There's a lot of things we considered.

Q. Was lead-off one of them?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: Lead-off was one of them.

Q. You're not going to be able to go through your normal on-field pregame today. Is it tougher to fly across the country, if you get that window, if it breaks at 8 o'clock, to just walk on to a field under these conditions to play your optimum game?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: I think at this point of the season where we are, how many times we've been on this field, we were just here last week, I don't think there's going to be any surprises to get any ground ball hit to you that's going to have a little bit of water on it. That's something that you play with from time in and time out. We just had a workout back home in Southern California yesterday before we came here. And there was some dew on the grass and it was wet. Our guys fielded the ground balls wet and threw them around the infield. That wasn't by design, by the way. It happened to be that way.
At this part of the season we're ready to go. We're going to go out there and do as much as we can do. Get loose and play. We'll be ready. Sure, there's always going to be distractions out there, whether it's the weather or things happening. You need to stay focused and play baseball.

Q. Mike, do you bring momentum into New York with the way that you won your last ballgame coming from behind? Or do you go through that old adage, momentum is only what you get out of that starting pitcher in the next ballgame?
MIKE SCIOSCIA: I think there's some momentum you can carry after a big win. But when you get out there between the lines, just like the team on the other end after a tough loss, after Game 4, we were sitting down and we had a tough loss, you saw Game 5, we went out and recreated momentum very quickly. So it's going to be how you grind it out pitch by pitch. You have to recreate momentum, I think, at any time when you start a ballgame.
You have to go out there and just pitch by pitch grind it out. I think there's a little momentum you carry when you're not -- when you're still in the series, you win a game and stay in the series. But I don't know how much that carries over. We know the task ahead of us. We have to get after it early and get early runs again. That's very, very important for us. Hopefully hold it this time to where we can get into our type of game.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks a lot, Mike.

End of FastScripts

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