|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: GIANTS v PHILLIESOctober 22, 2010Roy OswaltPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Workout Day THE MODERATOR: Questions for Roy Oswalt. Q. How would you equate your outing the other notice to a side day, was it about as strenuous, more strenuous, less strenuous? ROY OSWALT: Probably about the same. After 18 pitches in the game, probably the same thing as the bullpen. Q. So no difficulty bouncing back? ROY OSWALT: No. Q. Does it affect your routine at all not knowing whether you're going to pitch at 4:00 or at 8:00 tomorrow, and if so, how? ROY OSWALT: No, you don't really start getting ready until two hours before the game. So if it's 4:00 or 8:00, it doesn't really matter. Q. I know you're obviously disappointed with the outcome, get going with relief, does it give you motivation having a chip on your shoulder, something like that because you're obviously in another elimination game and you've had a good track record in the postseason? ROY OSWALT: Like I said before, numbers, to me, no big deal. I didn't want to get the loss for sure. But you never know what you're going to get back here. So that's one of the reasons I want to be in the game the other night. I don't know how much longer I'm going to play. But may not get to this spot again. So I'm going to try to do everything possible to get to that final game. Q. I was wondering what you thought about Halladay's performance and could you talk about how important the right push leg is, when you have a groin injury, how that affects you and what that all meant going into his performance and does his performance inspire a ballclub. ROY OSWALT: I thought he pitched great. I've had groin injuries before in the past. They're tough to pitch with. Especially because you don't get to use your lower half and you have to throw mostly upper body. But I thought he was still able to move the ball around and didn't quite have the blast he normally has but the ball was still moving a good bit and he competes. Every day he comes out here he competes and that's one good thing being on the staff with him and Cole, is you get to see him every day and how they compete during the game. Q. I know after your series with the Astros you got a tractor for winning Game 6, do you still have that tractor? ROY OSWALT: It's actually a bulldozer, yeah. Q. Just tell me the story behind that. ROY OSWALT: Drayton had a dozer that he was using on his farm. And we was going back and forth about I wanted to buy it from him for a discount. And he -- through the season we went back and forth, I was trying to buy it for him after he got finished using it and what he was going to do with it. And before the game I was watching film on St. Louis. He came in there, in the video room, and was talking, normally, you know, about being a champion and different things that he talks about. And he said I wasn't really -- not focused on him, I guess you could say, I was trying to focus on the hitters. He knew he had to say something to get my attention. He told me if I win he would just buy me a new one. I made him shake my hand on that. So it worked out pretty well. Q. Any promises if you win this one? ROY OSWALT: I haven't yet. I might go by see what Greenland wants to do. Q. You obviously pitched a pretty big moment in that series with the Cardinals. What do you as a competitor, how do you view this opportunity you have tomorrow? ROY OSWALT: I try to pitch every game like the last one. You never know, you're never guaranteed the next day. So it's going to be no different. Trying to attack hitters and make them beat me, not trying to put guys on. No different than any other game. It's a must-win game but I treat every one of them like a must-win. Q. You just talked about you're not sure how long you're going to do this. I know in April you got a call when the tornado hit your parents' place. How much -- as you're going out there to visit them, how much did that sort of put everything in perspective, that you gotta kind of live in the moment type of thing? ROY OSWALT: Once you get to the postseason and get to the World Series like we did in '05 and not get back, and five years later you realize how difficult it is to get back to the situation. So you try to treat it as it's maybe the last time. You never are guaranteed anything. Doesn't matter how good a team you have. You may not never get back in this situation. So when you are here you try to do everything possible when you're here. Q. Other than the playoff game in '05, the long one, Clemens came in. When he came in and pitched some relief in that game, how much of a boost did that give to you guys and how exciting was that game? ROY OSWALT: Well, we were running out of pitchers. We had to have somebody. He actually had thrown probably 200 pitches in the bullpen or in the cage back before then and nobody knew that. So he was already hot before he went down there. He did that in like the 13th, 14th inning Colby was hitting off of him, and he came up and he said he felt pretty well throwing BP to his son in the cage. So he went down and threw three more innings, 15th through the 18th. It was getting to the point where if we didn't score pretty soon we were going to have to put somebody else down there, and it was good that we won it in the 18th. Q. Would you have as sharp? ROY OSWALT: I was pitching the next day. I wouldn't have been in that game. Q. At this stage of your career, you seem like a real cool guy, real laid back. Do nerves ever come into play before a big game like this, even at this stage, do you ever get the feeling in your stomach like this is big and you start getting a little antsy about it? ROY OSWALT: You always have adrenalin when you go out there, especially games like this. But I think after you have over 300 starts in the Big Leagues you still try to treat it as another start and you don't try to get caught up in too much of the hype of it, I guess you'd say. But more of treat it like another ballgame and try to do what you normally do when you go out there. And sometimes I think guys get caught up and try to do too much and get out of their game. I think the biggest thing is to stay within your game and pitch like you normally do. Q. The way you guys recovered from that 2005 Game 5 to shake that off and then go on and eliminate, is that something that you can pass on? It also can be a warning, just because you won 5 that it doesn't mean that anything's locked in? ROY OSWALT: Just like I said, when we lost the other night in San Francisco, I mean, we have three more games. And we've won three in a row a bunch this year. No one's panicked yet. I know we've got our backs against the wall. But we feel if we get back here in Philadelphia we have a real good chance of winning the next two. Q. Following up with what you just said, a lot of talk about getting back to Philadelphia, now that it's actually here, is that just a matter of comfort? Is it the fans? What specifically makes this team believe that if they get it here, now they play here today and possibly tomorrow you can win it? ROY OSWALT: Just home ballpark. You've got your fans with you and everyone feels comfortable here. I think the excitement of the crowd and adrenalin gets you going a little bit at home more than it does on the road, and when you get into an environment on the road, one little thing they get going and it seems like they build off of it. Same thing here at home. If we get a hit, fans get into it, hitters start believing, they all feel like they can get a hit. And it just kind of escalates from there. Q. Do you have a message for the fans or anything in terms of the ones that come to the game tomorrow? ROY OSWALT: They usually do a pretty good job on their own. Q. When you're at the end of a long grinding series like this, after a long season, for the team, is the bigger task mental or physical at this point? ROY OSWALT: I think the whole thing is momentum. You get momentum on your side and sometimes you can ride it for five or six games in a row and win five or six in a row. Hitting's contagious. You start hitting, everyone starts hitting, seems like it's contagious. With what happened in San Francisco in the third inning there when we scored three runs, everybody started hitting the ball and it got contagious. The dugout came alive and it changed the whole mood of the team. Same thing here, I think when you score early, you get momentum on your side. You kind of build from there. Q. This ballpark is obviously not pitcher friendly. What is it about it that you like to pitch at and you've had success here? ROY OSWALT: I pitched in Houston. It's small there, too. We have a big center field. But the left field I've seen a lot of broken bat home runs go out of there. And my biggest thing usually when I get a home run it goes out of any park. It doesn't really matter the size. Don't really think about it when you're on the mound. You think of make them hit it on the ground or try to not let them hit it on the sweet spot of the bat, and if you can do that you're usually pretty successful. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Roy. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|