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MLB WORLD SERIES: RANGERS v GIANTSNovember 1, 2010Hensley MeulensARLINGTON, TEXAS: Game Five Q. The other night we were talking about what you were going to do with Pat, you know, especially on the day off. What did you help him with? And what do you think he's going to be able to carry into the game? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, first of all, the day off was very well needed for him, just to give him a break from the everyday grind. And also I just took him in the cage and threw to him, basically pitched to him like a pitcher, a curveball, change-up and the whole nine yards. Just to get him to get a feel back for where he was standing, keep his body upright because that's what the problem was, he was leaning over and his hat was tilting. When he does that, he doesn't see the ball very well because his eyes are moving. So we kind of corrected that a little bit, and he did some of it today, as well. Hopefully he can get back on track tonight. Q. Torres and Sanchez both started off really slowly in the post-season and then they both really got it going. What with each of those guys did they change or fix to get moving? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, with Torres he was really, really late getting started in his setup. So he's a leg kick guy, and when his foot is up in the air, it's hard to swing with your foot in the air. So he wasn't getting his foot down in time to be able to recognize pitches. So we kind of worked on that in the cage and did some drills with him to kind of correct him, get him started earlier so he can give himself a better chance to see the ball and recognize breaking pitches. You know, they were throwing him a lot of breaking balls out of the strike zone that he was chasing and fastballs up in the zone that he was chasing, as well. He worked very hard in correcting that, and he did. And with Freddie, basically Freddie, he was a little off in his base, his balance was a little off. He was kind of jumping on the ball and closing himself up with his front shoulder, and tucking his hands behind has back shoulder, so it's hard to hit like that. You want to kind of have your hands away from your body, and that's what he worked on, keeping his posture upright, and he was able to correct that. He's had a pretty good series for us. Q. Before the series, Cliff Lee said the Giants are here essentially because of their pitching and defense. Did you and your guys take any offense to that? Did it have any effect on the performance in the opener? HENSLEY MEULENS: No, we didn't. He's a good pitcher. You know, he's had good post-seasons in his career, so we didn't take him lightly. We knew that he was going to be tough, but we also knew that if we took our game plan to him, then we are probably going to scratch some runs, just like we did all year, scratch three or four runs here and there to give our great pitching a chance to win the game. He left more balls over the plate than I guess he would like to, but our guys were ready to swing. We were in attack mode from the first pitch on, and it worked out for us that game that he left too many pitches over the plate. Q. Renteria didn't have the greatest regular season, but if you look he's hitting .429 in the World Series. Is it something happening in his swing or is it just somebody that likes the World Series? How can you explain what he's been doing in the series so far? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, this guy got off to a great start this year. He had 11 hits in the first four games and he was off and running. Unfortunately he was on the DL four different times for four different injuries. You can't measure this guy's heart. He's worked hard all throughout the season and was telling us the whole time that he was going to help us win, that we were going to need him at some point, and he was right. This guy has played in these games before, and he persevered, he kept himself ready. When he came back, all those times he found himself on the bench because Juan was playing so well. But I can't say enough about his desire and his heart and his hard work he put together all throughout the year, even though he was hurt all the time, and even when he came back, he wasn't playing. But he never one day neglected to get work in and stay prepared and stay ready. Unfortunately for Sandoval, through his struggles we've had to use Renteria, and he's having a great series for us. Q. The little kid dressed up as Ron Washington has got a lot of play. What would a little kid have to dress up to look like Bochy, to be a little Bochy? HENSLEY MEULENS: I don't know. He's got to be tall, have a lot of hair. I don't know what else. What can you come up with? Q. He'd have to have a big head. HENSLEY MEULENS: He's my manager. I won't say that. (Laughter). Everybody knows that. Q. With all the success that the Yankees had had before you were a player there and after, how do you view the fact that this is your first chance at the post-season, and here you are 27 outs from a world championship? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, you know, I'm grateful to have come up through the Yankees' system because it was all about winning there. From day one when you walk into the Minor League camp there, they instill winning into everybody, and I'm happy for that. Unfortunately throughout my five years of up and down with the New York Yankees, we weren't very good at that time, and we were not even in the post-season in any of those years. But still, everything every day was, let's win the game today, and that's what I've carried all through my 25-year career. It's pretty special to be here. I'm 43 years old, and first year as a Big League hitting coach, having to work with this great group of guys and being at this pinnacle point that we have a chance to do something great. But I take it back to all those years -- Brian Sabean was my farm director over there when I was playing. We talked about it. He brought me over here. George Steinbrenner is a winner. You can look at it any way you want, but that's how I grew up, playing professional baseball. We have a chance to win today. Q. Two-part question about Bruce Bochy: What were your impressions of him before you worked for him? And what have you learned being around him every day? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, to be honest with you, I didn't know Bruce very well. I just knew that he was a very driven manager that wanted to win every day, and I'm okay with that. Working with him, he's very intense. He's always thinking ahead. He's very well-prepared. You know, any time any of us on the coaching staff are lacking something, he makes sure that he lets us know that we've got to pick it up. For me as a first-year Big League hitting coach, he's basically left me to do my job with the offense, and when he needed to say something to me about anybody, he would call me in his office and show me what we needed to work on, and I took it from there. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to work under him. He's the Manager of the Year for me. Q. Game 1 against Cliff Lee, a lot of your players afterwards credited the plan of being very aggressive against him, not to let him get ahead in the count. Then last night you guys made Tommy Hunter work through a lot of long counts and some of the players afterwards credited the opposite of being very patient with him. I'm just wondering how specific of a plan your hitters take into each game and how much it varies from pitcher to pitcher. HENSLEY MEULENS: You're right. I mean, with Cliff you have to be aggressive because he likes to throw strike 1, strike 2, and then after that the percentages are not very high if you're going to get a hit off of him. We're going to do the same thing probably today. But you're right, it varies from day to day and pitcher to pitcher, depending on who's pitching. We look a lot at the last couple of starts they had coming into the game to see what kind of command they've had in their pitches, and you know, what pitches they've been struggling with and what pitches they haven't. You know, at times we stay aggressive on a certain pitch and be more patient on a different pitch. It's a lot of time that goes into preparing everybody, and every day it's a total team effort to get this plan done. Q. Do you have a plan for Pablo Sandoval for over the winter to try to get him back? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, you know, Pablo has never failed basically. He's had a lot of success in his Minor League and Major League career. At this point I think we haven't discussed that yet. I think Bochy and I and the staff are going to sit down and see what we're going to do to get him back. I think he's definitely -- he needs to get back and simplifying things and not think so much, not setting his bar so high, simplifying things, and just hitting the ball and stay behind the ball. The good hitters, they stay behind the ball, and he wasn't able to stay behind the ball on a consistent basis this year, and when your head is moving that much, you're going to swing at pitches that are not in the strike zone. Q. This team has a history of overaggressiveness, but it made some strides this year being more patient. I'm wondering how necessary is it for that message to filter through to have veterans with a history of working at-bats. HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, you know, coming in we have guys with great career numbers. You know, if you go around the horn, with Huff he's at .280 career hitter. None of them necessarily have walked a whole lot in their careers, but they've put together a lot of professional at-bats throughout their careers, and that's the one thing, the one message I kind of sent to them from Spring Training on. We've got to have more professional at-bats. That's why we got together that one day in Chicago, because that had gotten away from us a little bit. And then from that point on I think we scored 13 runs that day, and then from that point on we got back on track. But with Huffy, Freddie, Renteria, Pat now in the lineup, Buster, you can go on and on, Torres has been great for us, Cody here lately, all these guys put up very professional at-bats, one after the other. So that's why you see the differences. Q. What would you say about the job that Brian Sabean did with the moves this year? Also you worked for him a long time ago, how has his management style kind of evolved in your opinion? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, it takes a lot to make those moves at the times he made them, but I guess he works a lot with his gut feeling, and he knew what we needed and he got the pieces for us. You know, you can't say enough about all the guys he's brought in pitching and hitting-wise to help this team get to this point. We wouldn't have been here without some of these guys that he brought in, that's for sure. But again, you've got to pull the trigger, and you've got to pull it fast. And he's been doing it for a long time. I'm just really happy for him that they resolved it for us as a whole this year. Q. Can you describe the emotion of the team. Obviously one win away from the World Series, but you're facing a great pitcher. But the confidence obviously pretty high as you've faced him earlier in the series. Talk about their emotion going in one win away. HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, I think everybody realizes that we haven't won anything yet and everybody is still pretty cool in the clubhouse today. Everybody came like it's a normal day of work. In the cage so far today, everybody has done their routine like it's a normal game, and that's the way we are approaching it. You can't get too far ahead of yourself in this game today. We know it's not going to be an easy game. We've got to have our "A" game to beat them again, just like we did in the first game. So that's the mentality we have. We're not taking anything for granted. We're just going to go out there and try to apply the game plan and try to do the same thing we did in Game 1. Q. All the attention seems to go to the pitchers, but what have you guys shown in this series about the hitting, that this team can score runs? HENSLEY MEULENS: Well, we showed that we have professional hitters in the lineup. We showed that we have guys that have pretty good careers so far. Once they get together and they keep the line moving, they can score some runs. Fortunately for us, they're all coming together at the right moment right now for us, and what a time to do it. And we've done it all year. We won 92 games in a very tough division during the regular season, scratching out runs. We've also scored a bunch of runs in a couple different series. So it was, you know, kind of nice to see them come together the first couple games to put those 20 runs on the board, to relax the pitching staff that had so much pressure on them to maintain us close in games. But I tip my hats to all of the guys that grinded through. We have a veteran team with a couple of young guys mixed in, a veteran that hasn't played much in the Big Leagues in Torres and is having a breakout year. All those guys have had pretty good years for us to put enough runs on the board to be one step away from winning the World Series. End of FastScripts |
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