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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: YANKEES v RANGERS

October 16, 2010

Joe Girardi

ARLINGTON, TEXAS: Game Two

YANKEES Â– 2
RANGERS - 7

Q. What did you see with Hughes?
JOE GIRARDI: He was up in the zone today. Didn't have much of a curveball. And you leave the ball up in the zone, it's a dangerous club that we talked about, and they hurt him.

Q. Other than Robinson Cano in that one inning last night, you haven't shown much offensively. How concerned are you?
JOE GIRARDI: Well, I thought we hit some balls hard today. I'm not too concerned about our offense. We put quite a comeback and we had opportunities today.
As I said, you keep putting runners on, and you're going to score some runs.

Q. What did you see in Colby Lewis?
JOE GIRARDI: He mixes his pitches well and he locates. He changes speeds. He does what you're supposed to do as a starting pitcher, and he's got four weapons that he can go to, and he mixes well.

Q. You said you're not too concerned about your offense. Are you concerned about your starting pitching off of these two games? And do short starts motivate you more to go with short rest or less to go with short rest?
JOE GIRARDI: Our starters have not pitched well so far. Our starters pitched extremely well and everyone was giddy about them the last series. I don't ever get too involved in snapshot pictures because those can be dangerous.
I believe in our guys and I believe that they will pitch well as we continue forward here.

Q. The short starts --
JOE GIRARDI: That's not something that we have discussed.

Q. Following up to that, do you anticipate at all reconsidering A.J. for Game 4 and maybe going short with CC?
JOE GIRARDI: Right now, we are on rotation. So I mean, I haven't discussed that with anyone. I mean, we are on rotation.

Q. Given that with the exception of the eighth inning last night, you haven't played particularly well offensively, is going up against Lee in Game 3 sort of a daunting task for an offense that's trying to find itself right now?
JOE GIRARDI: We know he's very good. We've seen him a lot in his career.
There's been talk about Cliff Lee before he even started this series, and people were talking about Game 3. But let's not forget that we have a pretty good guy on the mound, too, that's won a lot of post-season games and has won a lot of clinchers in his career. I can go back to catching him in 1998 when he won the clincher against San Diego, and he's been doing it a long time.
You would think that it would be a great match-up on Monday night.

Q. Obviously last year Game 1 World Series, what Lee did that night, what was it like watching a pitcher handle your lineup the way he did that night?
JOE GIRARDI: There's no doubt he's got command. He can change, you know, location, in and out, change speeds.
Cliff Lee doesn't beat himself. And he's going to throw a lot of strikes and he's going to be ahead in the count, and we know that when he makes a mistake, you have to put a good pass on it. We've seen Cliff Lee very good and at times we have scored runs off of Cliff Lee.
The guy that's getting lost in this is Andy Pettitte, and he's pretty good.

Q. Is there anything at this point that would motivate you to consider throwing CC on short rest?
JOE GIRARDI: I just came off the field five minutes ago, and I'm worried about Game 3. I don't get too far ahead. So we'll worry about Game 3, and if we worry about Game 4 before Game 3, we are going to be in trouble.

Q. The inning that Hughes got out without giving up a run, did you think maybe he had found it so you kept going with him right there?
JOE GIRARDI: Are you talking about the first, or -- which inning? The fourth?

Q. The fourth.
JOE GIRARDI: Well, he was up in the zone, but he was still -- you know, he was getting some outs for us, so we decided to stay with him and then he gives off the lead-off double in the fifth and we get Joba up. And he struggled today. There is no doubt about it and I expect him to better next time.

Q. Do you think the couple extra days may have hurt Phil tonight?
JOE GIRARDI: He may have had a couple. I don't necessarily think so, but I can't be 100% sure. That's the intrigue about baseball and the way the playoffs are set up.

Q. Would you consider not considering CC throw that bullpen tomorrow to give you that flexibility if you do decide to throw him in Game 4?
JOE GIRARDI: Hypotheticals, I love. (Laughing) Let me just get on the airplane first and we'll meet tomorrow.

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