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AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v RAYS

October 12, 2010

Joe Maddon

TAMPA, FLORIDA: Game Five

Texas Â– 5
Tampa Bay - 1

Q. It seemed that Cliff Lee kind of flipped a switch there in the 4th inning, huh?
JOE MADDON: You're exactly right. He's pretty good. We had a early chance to do some things, but once he settles in, he really had a good cutter, slider, whatever that is going on tonight. He brought that into the game plan more often and was very effective. Typically makes good pitches, doesn't walk people, doesn't give you a chance in that regard, and he did.
I mean, David pitched fine. David was good. We made too many mistakes today. We made too many Spring Training mistakes, things that you cover from the very first day that come back, came back and beat us tonight basically.
And to their credit, and I want to say, also, I want to congratulate the Rangers, first of all. I mean, that's a spectacular achievement that they've put forth this season to win this particular series, never having won a series before, advancing. I give them a lot of credit to Ron and the whole group. I just want to say congratulations to them.

Q. The plays where they scored from second on the ball, didn't leave the infield, what was your view of that?
JOE MADDON: Well, the first one when Andrus is running on the pitch, he's actually running on the pitch, and when Carlos had flipped the ball to David, David just was not aware, and it's really difficult. Guys were yelling, "Home, home, home." That's what you do in a Spring Training drill when you're covering in that circumstance. You get to the bag quickly, hit it, you turn in and you look immediately to home plate, and we just didn't do that.
And on the second one, the double play was a confusing play, and I think by the time David righted himself again Vladimir, who's also a very good base runner, made it to the plate. Those were two huge runs.
And of course the two-out double by Cruz and then the errant throw into left field, I mean, that's three points right there that's typically the kind of runs that we score. So that was the part of it that was a little bit maddening. But they played well, they played hard, they came back after two big losses in Texas. You have to give them a lot of credit.
Again, when you don't score any points, it really exaggerates the mistakes that you do make to the point where they really do stand out. We just have to do a better job offensively in the recent past against left-handers; we have not done very well.

Q. Texas' first two runs were both a direct result of stolen bases putting runners in motion. They were very aggressive stealing bases. Was that more so because Price was slow to the plate or was it Shoppach do you think they running on?
JOE MADDON: You know, they do a lot of peeking. They try to look inside and see what's going on. I think it's more often than not a base is thrown because of the pitcher, when you're making reads on a pitcher.
You know, we also had a couple chances we fouled off and that was the maddening part of it, even early on when Zobrist spun it foul and Willy fouled the pitch off and B.J. was stealing -- he eventually did steal, but that would have put us in better position. But a lot of times -- what I'm saying is we were going off of Lee right there as opposed to Molina, and they were probably going off of Price as opposed to Shoppach.

Q. You play in the toughest division in baseball so you know the Yankees pretty well. How do you think the Rangers will do against them?
JOE MADDON: I think it's going to be a great series actually, and I'll tell you why, because I think Texas is very similar to us in a lot of respects. I think they're a little bit more offensive, though. That's pretty obvious. They play good defense, run the bases well, good starting pitching, and they have a very nice bullpen that you can match up with, because they have all the lefties. You have to have some lefties out there to match up with the Yankees. You have to have a couple reverse guys. If you have that, that helps, also.
But I think it's going to be a very interesting series. Texas has played them well all season. I happened to catch some of the last outings in Texas on television, and I think it's going to be very entertaining, very interesting, and again I'm saying that because Texas does remind me of us in many ways.

Q. Losing would be bad anyway at this time of year, but is there an extra sense of melancholy maybe knowing that this team will probably not be together next year?
JOE MADDON: Again, we've talked about this and I probably will reflect on that a little bit more as we go deeper into the off-season. And I've also talked about I have a lot of faith in our system and how we do things. We've gotten to this point because we've been creative, because we have excellent ownership and a great front office staff. We'll put this down for a couple weeks, then we'll pick it back up and we'll start seeing where all the pieces are going to fall, then we'll start putting it together for next year. I really believe, like I said, in our system. I believe we're going to contend again next year. I know a lot of people, once again will think I'm nuts, but that's okay. I really believe that. As we find out who's going to be here or not going to be here then we'll make our decisions and move on from there.

Q. Obviously the team ties it up in the third but then gives up the run in the fourth. The question was asked did Cliff settle down and kind of really start going after it or did your team start to press knowing they had to get another run?
JOE MADDON: No, I didn't think we started to press. I thought we were in pretty good shape tonight. You've got to give the guy credit sometimes. We're not the first team he's done that to. Those kind of guys you want to get on early. You saw early on his command was a little bit off. He was throwing some balls to Zobrist's at-bat, bunting at several pitches that were probably balls and not strikes. And once he got tuned in, he becomes very difficult, and a lot of the aces are like that. He's exceptional. He's different, and he got us. He got us twice in this series. Their lefty starters pretty much had us down.

Q. From the first day of Spring Training you stressed that your mantra was when we get to the World Series. So is this more disappointing than the loss in Philadelphia a couple years ago?
JOE MADDON: I don't know. Honestly when you get to the World Series and don't finish it off, that's -- you normally cry in the locker room at that point. I didn't cry in the locker room today. Not that I cared any less, but I just think when you get to that particular juncture of the season you fought so hard, maybe brings out a little bit more emotion. For me this time around with us and the kind of group that we had, we're very disappointed that we didn't get farther. But I think when you get to the World Series and it falls apart a little bit, that's even a little bit more crushing.

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