AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v MARINERS

October 14, 2001

Chuck Finley

CHUCK FINLEY: Well, I've got to make better locations with my pitch, obviously. That first inning, I made a couple bad pitches that obviously put us in a hole real quick. I'm going to still pitch my same game, but I've got to make better pitches, better spots on the plate and go from there. That's the only thing I saw when I was pitching that first inning that kind of got me into trouble.

CHUCK FINLEY: After we came out and played so well yesterday, and the way Bartolo was throwing the first five or six innings, I liked our chances very well. Obviously, they are a scrappy bunch. They put us on the back side and we'll go out on a plane like they do and it's winner take all.

CHUCK FINLEY: I think the only time I faced him was the other day. I walked him, he popped up and he hit a base hit up the middle.

CHUCK FINLEY: I notice he's got a real quick bat. He's got a lot of plate coverage. He doesn't swing at a lot of bad pitches and the ones he does -- I played over in Japan 1990 with the All-Star Team, and he had a typical swing like those guys, very unorthodox, but he seems to be the cream of the crop putting the ball in play. He hits the ball hard a lot. He's the type of guy that can make things happen out there with people on base.

CHUCK FINLEY: Well, it's exciting, obviously. Would I have liked to have pitched better and we would not be sitting here talking right now. But it's what you look forward to. As a pitcher, obviously, you would like to move on in the Division Series as quick as you can, but it comes down to the fifth game and your name gets called, you ought to be able to honor that and go out and enjoy it and try the best you can and go out and win the ballgame. I'm elated to pitch. After that game Thursday, I kind of figured we would be back to Seattle anyway on Monday so I was already starting to think about that after that game.

CHUCK FINLEY: I was a little bit overpumped. Obviously I was out there a few times overthrowing a little bit. I think that's what hurt my location a lot. But that was natural. I knew that going into that I would probably have an overload of adrenaline flowing, and I just -- this time, I've got to try to find a way to burn it all out before I get on the mound tomorrow and not take it into the game with me; find some way to kind of tame it and work with it.

CHUCK FINLEY: A six-pack maybe, I don't know. (Laughter.)

CHUCK FINLEY: They had options for me as far as the other games, the timing of the other games as far as we were going to play at 7:00, but it doesn't bother me one way or the other. I would just prefer to stay with the team and fly with them. Sleep means nothing at this point right now. Your rest means nothing. Everybody is pretty much flowing on adrenaline right now and the enthusiasm of going to play a final game and to move on in the series. I don't think there will be one guy out there that would say they got enough sleep last night. If we don't win, we'll get a lot of sleep.

CHUCK FINLEY: Yeah, we talked, but we just -- general stuff about -- there was no secrets hidden anywhere about what happened. I made two bad pitches there in the first part of the game that put us in a hole, and well, what are you going to tell somebody: "Hey, you made a couple bad pitches"?

They said, "Hey, hang in there. You'll get your chance again." They could not say much. Just, we'll go back to Cleveland, pick it up and start over again.

CHUCK FINLEY: Well, we've done this before during the season where we would finish up a Sunday afternoon game and have to get up and fly that night and play the next day. A game of this magnitude, no, but we've had this go on throughout the course of the season where we've had to fly out that night and get, in at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and play a night game or a day game, depending on the schedule. We had one in Detroit last year where we flew in and it was only an hour and a half flight, and we had a 12:00 game. We are so used to it; it's no big deal.