NL DIVISION SERIES: METS v GIANTS

October 4, 2000

Shawn Estes

SHAWN ESTES: I'm not going to change too much up from what I've done all season. I'm an emotional pitcher, and I plan to be an emotional pitcher tomorrow and hopefully win, winning. I've been knocked at times because of my emotions, but those are the things that make me tick, and those are the things that make me competitive and motivate me. I'm going to go out there, and I know the magnitude of this game, and I'm going to go out there with the same approach I've had all year, intensity, and concentration. I feel confident right now in my abilities. I feel a hundred percent physically, so it's a matter of getting out there and letting the adrenaline kick in and going from there.

SHAWN ESTES: Well, I think through experience more than anything, failing, versus some success, and failing a little bit and going through some problems with injuries. I've been able to overcome all that. This year I feel a lot more confident that I can go out there and maybe not feel a hundred percent and still get guys out and still have a chance to win. I have a lot more confidence in my three pitches that I throw, and throwing them for strikes anytime it counts. And plus I have confidence in the fact that I've faced these hitters a few times the past few years, and I know what to expect from them. And I have a lot of confidence in my catcher and the scouting report we have on the opposing team. I go out and just try to execute it.

SHAWN ESTES: Well, here in Pac Bell Park it's electric out there. There's a buzz starting in the off-season. I live here in the off-season and with the new ballpark, there's been a buzz from day one, and it carried over right through the season. When I go out and take the mound, there's a lot of energy in this park. I feel a lot more confident here than I do probably anywhere else. Put it this way, I feel confident pitching at home. I felt good pitching at Candlestick, too, but it's a lot more enjoyable to go out there and succeed in front of 40,000 fans instead of 12,000 or 15,000. They get me pumped up. They really do. They've carried me through a couple of games where I've been fatigued both mentally and physically, and they've gotten me through the last couple of innings. It's nice to see them come out and droves this year and support us. I definitely attribute the fans to our success this year. We don't want -- they say that a good athlete doesn't want to fail in front of crowds. And we have 40,000 people out there, and you don't want to fail in front of 40,000 people. So we get motivated for every game we play here. Now that we're in the playoffs, it's going to be magnified.

SHAWN ESTES: Well, I think that Dusty talked about him earlier, and I'll echo that. He brings a lot of energy to the table. I think that for us we have a young staff, but we have a staff that's had some experience, too. And I think his energy level that he brings, but also he doesn't over-coach, either. I think he lets us go out there and be ourselves, make our own mistakes, and we'll work on those mistakes between starts. I think the fact that he's been a starter, reliever and closer, I think he knows how to handle each and every one of us on the staff. And we respect him because we know he's done it, we know he's had success doing it, too. We look up to him. He's not far removed from the game, either. He just got done playing four or five years ago. So he understands, he sympathizes with us when we're not doing well, and he has a lot of patience with us. I think that he allows us to be ourselves, to go out and have some success and be very supportive of us.

SHAWN ESTES: Yeah. I mean, I think so. I think that winning creates a buzz, no doubt about it. And when you're winning, everybody wants to come out and watch you play. And I think that being in the city, and in the past I think we had a lot of fans from down south and we still do. But I think we attracted more of the city people now, people from San Francisco. And you walk around downtown, you hear people talking about the Giants, and that's the buzz right now. And it started in the off-season, too, everybody was looking forward to this new ballpark. We wanted to put a winning team on the field for not just the fans, but for the organization. So we've been able to do that and hopefully we can continue to do that. We don't want this to be a flash in the pan for the Giants. We want to do this for years to come. But this is a pretty good start.

SHAWN ESTES: I don't think that distracted me. That's not an excuse for losing that game. But I did end up -- I think I just mentioned it to somebody that that's one thing I did remember from that game is I hit someone in the head. Fortunately, they came back later on in the game with a hard hat on. But I made sure that he was okay. I faced Al Leiter in '97, too, and I'll face him tomorrow. It's an interesting little side note there.

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