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AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v RAYSOctober 11, 2010Joe MaddonTAMPA, FLORIDA: Workout Day Q. The reports back here over the weekend said that the plane ride to Texas was pretty funny and comical. How was the plane ride back yesterday? JOE MADDON: I was sleeping most of the day. No, it was a little bit more subdued but good. The guys are feeling very confident. They were feeling confident going into that game yesterday, too, so I think it's just a nice carryover. I love the way our boys are handling this moment right now and they definitely will be ready to play tomorrow night. Q. On the mound during Game 1, David looked like he was upset with himself, like he was angry for his performance. Do you get that sense? Do you get a sense of determination on his part that he gets to -- JOE MADDON: Yes. Q. -- try again? JOE MADDON: Yes, David was not happy with himself the first game of the Series, and if anybody -- nobody could be more critical of David than David can be, and he's going to definitely come into this game tomorrow with the right mindset. He's going to be charged up, amped up and not overly so. I really believe he's going to be in control of his emotions. He's a unique individual. From what I've seen from the time that first pick out of Vanderbilt and that circus of a year there for him and how well he handled that. Then he comes to us as a first round draft choice and handles those expectations well. Throw him into a pressure cooker in 2008, he's fine. So I just think I have a lot of confidence in David; we all do. So I expect a good performance tomorrow night. Q. Obviously you had some strong performances from your starting pitchers the last couple days. How big has the bullpen been? JOE MADDON: Great point. We talked about Matt a lot and we've talked about Wade a lot, but the whole bullpen has been fabulous. Yesterday I didn't talk enough about Grant Balfour. What he did yesterday was tremendous. The day before that role was played by Joaquin Benoit. They got, I think, four or five outs each, and actually the way Grant did it in that second inning against the very meaty part of the batting order did it within, I don't even know, five to ten pitches, yeah, very quickly, which is wonderful. You always like to get those outs quickly, man, get them in and get them out. He's done a great job, Benny, and of course Rafael. The whole group, Choate has come in and gotten the lefties out like he's supposed to. We haven't use much of Danny or Quallsy yet, but we shall in the right moment. So listen, our bullpen has been that all year, and you know that. But I didn't talk enough about Grant yesterday, and I thought about that after the game. His performance really made that game work for us. Q. Obviously these last two games you're left-handed hitting lineup fared pretty well. Obviously against a lefty what are your thoughts on where you go from there? JOE MADDON: There's different things we could consider, but I'm really much a believer in what's ever gotten us to this point you want to stay with it for the most part. I'm definitely willing to tweak things and make adjustments if I feel the information is good, and just reading our situation, if it's the appropriate thing to do at that time. I'm debating a couple little things quite frankly for tomorrow, but more than likely you're going to see a very similar lineup for us versus a left-handed pitcher. I do have a lot of confidence in this group. Our record against left-handed pitching has been actually very good this year. Most recently we had a good game against Sabathia up in New York with the same lineup. We didn't have such a good game versus Matusz and versus Chen recently, too. I'm trying to consider all of that. Our left-handed hitters really have not swung the bat often against left-handed pitching this year, although they did a nice job against Texas when I left them in there versus their bullpen. So there's different things to consider. Q. What do you recall, I guess, about the last time you guys played in one of these all-or-nothing games in '08, just sort of the atmosphere here, especially when you brought David into the game, how electric that was? JOE MADDON: If you remember that whole thing, we were up in Boston prior to that and had a pretty good chance at putting things away. We had like a seven-run lead, I think, in that particular game and gave it up, and then they win another game and all of a sudden we've got to go seven. I do remember that we were very confident regardless of what was going on. I remember Garza was really on a good roll pitching-wise at that time. But for the most part I always try to take stock of our guys. How are your guys? How are they -- are they chatty? Are they quiet? Are they sitting in front of their locker? Are they just not conversing as normal? That always bothers me. I hate quiet locker rooms; I like loud. So I want to see them be themselves and I want to see them interacting as normal. If I see that then I feel pretty good about the game that night. We weren't interacting well enough, I didn't think, in the first and second game against the Rangers, honestly, and then even the third game concerned me. But since we were able to get on top in the third game, all of a sudden the dugout came alive, you've got the boards chirping on a wire again and everything looks back to normal. So as long as we can maintain that appropriate camaraderie, that interaction, then I'll be pretty confident going into tomorrow night's game. Q. The Rays announced today they're going to take the tarps off the upper decks and open up about 5,000 more seats. How much do you think that can create maybe a little bit more of a home-field advantage? A. It's loud the way it is. That makes it even louder. Those people are even closer to the roof. I also believe there's going to be a discount for those wearing plaid in those seats. If we can get that in conjunction with the front office somehow, I'd love to see, what is it, 5,000 people up there in plaid at least. We're going to attempt to work on a discount. Sorry, Matthew. But I thought it would be a great idea. Q. In Game 1 there was a lot of talk about how David threw a lot of fastballs, even maybe a higher percentage than usual. Of course, if you throw in breaking balls and given up hits, then everybody would have said well, why are you giving your second best pitch. How do you kind of stand on that philosophically about how important it is to mix pitches or just let that fastball loose? JOE MADDON: It's all about counts. I mean, he was getting into some bad counts. They had two 3-0 big hits against them, the 3-0 homer by Cruz and a 3-0 double-up off the center field wall by Vladimir. And I think Francoeur was ahead in that count, too. So it's all about counts. I mean, if David gets ahead and if he's sitting ahead and they have to honor the other pitches in the back of their mind more readily, then the fastball becomes for effective. But when they're in fastball counts and they're seeing fastball, most Major League hitters can pretty much time that thing and put a good swing on it. So for me it's about David getting into better counts for him, and if he is then he can throw all fastballs actually when it comes down to it. He's pitched really well throwing, I don't even know, 90 percent fastballs. A lot of our guys, we're a high fastball throwing team. Although I think we're also very good about throwing other pitches for strikes when we're behind in the count. I encourage that. So I would think that specifically what you're asking, if he were to get behind in the count, he may have to come a little softer at different moments, and it's hard when you have 95 or 96 in your back pocket. They're not going to be looking soft. So getting ahead is a big part of his fastball abilities. Q. Was there a defining moment in this series that really swung the momentum back for you, aside from the scores, but something that may have occurred on the trip to Texas or maybe Carlos Peña's speech to the team? JOE MADDON: I don't know, what was the big hit? I'm blanking out right now. Which put us on top? Oh, Mikey's base hit, yeah. It was the 0-2 pitch from Feliz. Obviously that sets a pretty big at-bat right there. We had fought back to even, and this guy is 0-2 on Mikey right there, and I saw the video of how well he stayed inside that ball and drove it back through the middle. I really believed from that moment on our dugout was pretty much back to normal. And to have Mikey do it was really appropriate. Here's a guy that beginning of Spring Training we weren't counting on him to be this guy at this point of the season at all, quite frankly. We were not. And if you had told me that he would be, I'd really look at you kind of like weirdly because I didn't see it happening. But to his credit he's growing into this player very quickly. He's tough. Believe me, this guy is tough. He's one of the tougher players I've been on the field with, just physically -- I compare him to rebar. He's that tough, this guy. He's done a lot of big things for us in a very short career, and I just love the way he handles the moment. But I think that that particular hit versus their guy was probably the moment that switched things around. Q. Just wondering how limited, if at all, you think Longoria will be, and also getting back to the lineup real quickly, you didn't use Peña in that Game 2. Would that even be close to an option in this game? JOE MADDON: No, that was versus Wilson. That's a different -- actually Carlos has had some very good history against Lee. The Wilson thing, if you look at Wilson's numbers against left-handers, they're really ridiculous and I'm sure going to piggyback those two tomorrow night if necessary. He's really good against lefties. Carlos has had several homers, I think, against Cliff Lee. And right now just from the side I can see Carlos' swing having a lot more confidence. He's attacking the ball much better compared to what he had been doing. He was not feeling for things right now. No, Carlos is definitely in that lineup tomorrow. And Longo, you're going to see a lot of what you've been seeing, and I think I mentioned it the other day. Part of his problems I thought was that he was chasing pitches, and yesterday he got some pitches to hit and he did not miss them. That's where Longo has to be. He's got to be on his pitch, be ready. What he does sometimes is he really wants to move the ball in RBI situations and maybe sometimes give a pitcher an advantage. But when he's patient, he's very dangerous. Q. Health-wise he's okay? JOE MADDON: Yeah. I mean, what you're seeing -- what you saw the last couple days, you're probably going to see a lot of the same. This day off might help. It's actually like two days off, playing a noon game yesterday and it's going to be 8:00 tomorrow night. So that gives him plenty of time to recoup, and I really, like I said before, I have a lot of faith in our training staff. Q. Can you talk about the 2010 season going through the American League East, having so many games that people called must-wins and how it prepares your ballclub to be maybe a little battle tested when you finally get to that one game for advancement? JOE MADDON: Well, from the very first year I was here, people have often spoken about don't you wish you were in another division, and I've always said, no, and I've always believed that by playing in the American League East has permitted us to get better quicker, sooner. When you consistently have to play in Fenway or Yankee Stadium or the new Yankee Stadium or now going into Toronto has become very difficult, Baltimore is difficult. I'm not denigrating the rest of the league, but we play almost 80 games against these teams, playing nine teams in each one of these venues, it really hardens you up pretty quickly, and I think it's good. It's good for our young players. We got beaten up a little bit a couple years ago several times in both of those places, particularly Fenway and New York, but we learned from it. So I've often thought the best way to get good quick lead is to play the best as often as you can, and if you play the best as often as you can, then that expedites your getting better yourself. Q. Both teams have their best pitcher going, and both teams have to win. Just as a general philosophical kind of approach, would a manager be more likely to go longer with a starter or have a quicker hook? JOE MADDON: It's just going to depend. When you've got your best guy going out there, quite frankly, you probably are going to be a little bit more lenient, there's no question. I wouldn't argue that point. But then again, just going to have to watch what's going on, and if you have to shift it, you've just got to shift gears, you've got to do it. But I'm sure from their perspective, Cliff Lee and from our perspective David Price, you really feel you've got your best guys out there. You're probably going to be a little bit more lenient in regards to when you want to make a move. Q. Though he's not in the lineup, how good or how important is it to have Rocco in the dugout? There's a lot of shots on him on TV. JOE MADDON: Yeah, Rocco has been great. And when he came in and talked to me the other day, he was just really telling me how badly he felt, both about not being able to play and how badly he felt physically. Rocco is a uniquely wonderful young man for those of you that have had a chance to have a conversation with him. He's very -- what I asked him at that point is I said, listen, even though you can't play, I really want you to be here. I want you to walk around, I want you to influence, I want you to talk to these guys, et cetera. So Rocco is all about that. Rocco is a team guy. This is absolutely eating him up inside to not be able to participate right now. If you had been in that conversation with me, you would have seen that, the day he came and talked to me in my office. I know his heart is in the right place and he's a big part of what we're doing, has been, has been a big part of our fabric. But yeah, I love seeing Rocco in our dugout. End of FastScripts |
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