NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 13, 2001

Steve Finley

STEVE FINLEY: I mean, baseball is a game of adjustments, and both those guys pitched great games. And I'm sure hitters on both sides will be studying the tapes of how that guy pitched you. And, hopefully, you can make an adjustment. But I would say both pitchers are great athletes and are able to make the adjustments accordingly during the game. That's what makes them great pitchers.

STEVE FINLEY: It doesn't matter. We're keeping our focus. We all want to play today. Nobody wants to stay here another day in St. Louis and play tomorrow. So it just pushes everything back a day. I mean, reports we're getting, it's supposed to clear out of here around 3:00, 3:30.

STEVE FINLEY: Just good pitching. The teams that get to the playoffs are there for a reason -- pitchers make their pitches. Good pitching is going to beat good hitting, and we've seen some good pitching in this series so far. Sometimes the hitter, you've got to tip your hat to them. Sometimes you take good pitches and you loft them out there and they find holes. But the pitching has been real tough so far in the series.

STEVE FINLEY: I'm sure Curt is in the clubhouse right now watching this, so I better be careful what I say. I'll say hi to all the guys in there watching too. We were together in Baltimore in 1989 and '90, and he was a reliever then. And, also, we got traded to Houston in the winter of '90. And he was a reliever there and they, the Astros, just kind of lost, I don't know if you call it, patience, or what with him, and made the trade to Philadelphia, and they made him a starter and he's taken off from there. As I said, this is a game of adjustments, and Curt has made all the adjustments he's had to make over the years in making himself a great starting pitcher. He's one of the elite in the game. He gets himself ready better than any pitcher I've ever seen, as far as per start, knowing the lineup he's going to be facing, what he needs to do to get them out, what he's done in the past to get them out. Making adjustments in the game, pitch by pitch. He eliminates a lot of mistakes that maybe other pitchers make during games and that's why he has been so successful.

STEVE FINLEY: I don't want have to look at the numbers. I know I got some homers off of him, some base hits, nothing too damaging.

STEVE FINLEY: Well, you know, I mean, different pitchers, I mean the split -- it depends on the size of their hands. The split, some pitcher's split is a little bit farther, they make it more like a fork ball and it ducks and dives, and some don't split it as much and it acts more like a changeup with a little more rotation to it. From centerfield, watching Curt this year, sometimes his split finger stays in the zone and sometimes it just bottoms out of the zone. I think that's what really what makes it effective. If you're never throwing your split for a strike and guys can pick up the rotation on it, they're going to end up taking it. He throws enough of them for strikes that they can't take it and it just makes it more devastating.

STEVE FINLEY: Yes. You know you're going to be on your toes out there. He's throwing strikes. He only walked with 38 batters, 36 batters, 39, something like that. You know guys are going to be swinging the bat. When you know that, you're going to be on your toes.

STEVE FINLEY: Yes, I mean, I think in the first inning he fell behind a couple of batters and calmly made his pitches right on the outside corner. And when he needed to, turned it up a notch and was throwing the ball 97, 98. When he's doing that it's going to be tough for anybody.

STEVE FINLEY: I mean, we have such a great bench. And a lot of those guys on the bench have played every day or could play every day. And BB did a great job this year of keeping everybody fresh. That's one of the reasons our pinch-hitters did such a great job. Being somebody who has played every day, whenever you're sitting down -- obviously you want to be in there every day, but you know the guy who is in there is capable of doing just as good if not a better job than you are. Everybody checks their pride at the door at our clubhouse. When you come in and you're not playing, you get yourself ready to help the team every way you can. And that's the attitude we've all taken all year and it's been successful. Our bench has done an incredible job of coming in and getting big hits for us. And a lot of that is due to the fact that they've got their at-bats , you know, a couple of starts a week here and there and it makes a big difference. As an everyday player, as long as you get your at-bats you're going to be fresh, and everybody has got plenty this year.