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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: YANKEES v RANGERS

October 18, 2010

Ron Washington

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Game Three

RANGERS Â– 8
YANKEES Â– 0

Q. Have you seen Lee any better than that?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, I tell you, what we seen tonight is what we've been seeing. The guy can pitch. He can move the ball around. He can change speeds. He can hit spots. He can do whatever he have to do. Showed tonight. To do what he did to that lineup, that's a strong lineup over there. You definitely have to tip your hat to Cliff Lee.

Q. Can you talk a little more about Lee and his performance and his 13 strikeouts that he had during the season and now again tonight, and how he controlled the Yankees?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, you know, like once again, he has the repertoire. He can throw any pitch in any count. He cut the ball. He full-seamed it, changed up, shot fastballs up there. That was a complete performance to once again, as I said, to stagger that lineup. That's a powerful lineup. There's a lot of experience in that lineup. There's a lot of guys in that lineup who knew exactly what they are doing at the plate, and tonight, Cliff Lee was just the dog breed we needed [|]?

Q. If it remained a 2-run game, was he coming out?
RON WASHINGTON: No, we was going to ride him. We had some people up ready to go in case something happened, but we were going to ride him.

Q. Is there a threshold that you have for him in terms of the number of pitches or anything like that, or is it simply by what's happening in the game or feel?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, all of that comes into play, but we certainly asked Cliff when he came off the field how he felt, to be honest with us. He said he felt great. And once again, we were going to have backup, but this guy, when he comes out of the gate, he finishes what he starts. And we was going to allow him the opportunity to do that.
Just having that 2-run lead there, knowing how he felt, and knowing the finishing, tight pitcher that he is, just going to let him go. If he was going to go out there not got in trouble, he would have finished it. If he would have got in trouble, we would have brought other guys in.

Q. Did you think that Hamilton's home run when it went out that it would stand up?
RON WASHINGTON: Part of me wanted to think that, but once again, I know the power of the Yankees and how they can grinds things out when you think it's not going to happen. We knew we wanted to put more runs on the board and in the 8th inning we did it.

Q. How helpful was it for your closer, Feliz to get into a low-pressure situation tonight, considering he did look maybe a little anxious in previous outings in the post-season?
RON WASHINGTON: We figured that every time we get an opportunity to get him out there, it would benefit us. Because he's a young kid. You know, he's saved a lot of games for us, and he did a great job of doing that. But in the playoffs, it's a different atmosphere. It's a different animal, and I think every time we can get him out there in these type of situations, the better it's going to be when we have to put him out there in a tight ballgame. He begins to find out that it's the same game that he played when he was coming in saving 40 for us, that it's the same game.
It's just that everything is a little bit more magnified and you have to make sure that you can control that magnification. We brought him in because we wanted him to continue to feel good about himself.

Q. You talked about getting Hamilton going before the game. How important was what you saw from him tonight and going forward for the lineup?
RON WASHINGTON: You saw what he does. It's very important, and maybe up until this point, maybe he and Vlad had not done much; you might contain them but you can't stop them. Tonight Hamilton put us on the board early, Vlad came up and batted also, and had a pretty good at-bats and from that point on the guys came up and were able to put some runs on the board, so we felt good about ourselves going into the 8th inning.

Q. Obviously Cliff was great but if you can just for a minute talk about the performance Andy put in against them, pitching pitch for pitch.
RON WASHINGTON: We knew that would probably happen tonight. And Andy did. He stood up tall. You know, Cliff just was better as far as keeping runs off the board. You certainly can't take anything away from Andy Pettitte. I think everybody in baseball knows what he is when it comes down to this time of the year, and he certainly did his job.
But once again, Cliff just bettered him tonight.

End of FastScripts

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