NL DIVISION SERIES: METS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 6, 1999

Steve Finley

STEVE FINLEY: A lot of deep breaths. You know, those are the situations you have to want. You know, I think every hitter lays around, visualizing being in those situations and coming through it. Was nice to be able to do that tonight. But the situations you want to be in, I think if you want to be in those, you're able to control your emotions a little better.

STEVE FINLEY: I know I've always been a pest to the Giants. But yeah, that's a compliment whenever an opposing manager or anybody calls you a pest; that means you're doing something to irritate the other team. Any time you're doing that, it's good.

STEVE FINLEY: Like I said earlier, those are the situations you want to be in, and you just have to focus on your job at hand and not worry about all the noise and everything. You just kind of get the tunnel vision working and you don't hear anything. It's just you and the pitcher. When you're able to focus like that, a lot of times you can come through.

STEVE FINLEY: You know, in the past, yeah, I've struggled. You know, I've run into some pretty good pitching, but, you know, I don't really worry about the past at all. You know, I didn't worry about, after my first at-bat today, I put that behind me. If you worry about what's happened before, it can affect what you're trying to do now. You know, tonight I just came -- everybody in the clubhouse, as a matter of fact, it was just like a regular season game we were playing tonight, not playoffs. Everybody just came out really loose and I think that's why we were successful tonight. Stottlemyre did a great job for us tonight and we got him some runs and a win. It was big.

STEVE FINLEY: He always pitches with a lot of energy. I think everybody really looks up to him for what he had to go through this year, and to really not hang his head he worked his rear end off to get back. I think he's actually become a better pitcher from it. He's throwing harder. He's hitting his spots. He's about as fierce a competitor as you're going to see on the mound, and that rubs off. You know you've got a guy battling like that on the mound, and all the guys on the staff, you feel the same way for them. They want to win as bad as anybody, and when you can get a win, that makes you feel good.

STEVE FINLEY: There's guys on this team that have more postseason experience than I do; so maybe they might be able to give me advice. But as far as that last year, it was great. I love loud crowds, whether it's home or way. The New York fans are great. It's crazy. It's going to be loud. If you can't get up for that, then there's something wrong with you.

STEVE FINLEY: No. Buck has been doing it all year. There's no reason to stop now. When you're put in those situations a lot of times on 3-0, you're going to get a good pitch; so you try to take advantage of it. So no, not at all.

End of FastScripts….