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NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v PHILLIES

October 1, 2011

Charlie Manuel

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Game One

Phillies Â– 11
Cardinals - 6

Q. Raul had some struggles at different times this year, had some really tough months, and you stuck with him the whole way. What was your thinking behind sticking with him?
CHARLIE MANUEL: Oh, Raul (laughter). I seen him play probably his whole career, and he showed me signs that he definitely wasn't finished, and you look up there at the end of the year for him to be 83 RBIs, what did he hit, 21, 22 homers, and I think he got off to such a slow start but he come a long ways, and his run production actually ended up pretty good.
And tonight -- he got a couple big hits down in Atlanta the other day off two left-handed pitchers. And tonight of course he hit a homer and he got a couple hits, and he did a good job.

Q. Do you think you guys were maybe hacking a little bit early and making it easy for Lohse and as you got more patient the results went with that?
CHARLIE MANUEL: Yeah, took us four innings before we got a hit. But at the same time, basically he was pitching a similar game to what he threw here a couple weeks ago when we played him. He pitched a real good game that night, and it took us a while to get to him, but we've got patience with him and also he made a couple mistakes with his breaking ball up, and I think those are the balls that we hit for homers.

Q. Can you talk about Ryan's at-bat in the sixth inning? Considering how last year's post-season went for him, what it was like inside the dugout and the relief to see him produce in that spot?
CHARLIE MANUEL: Yeah, tonight I felt like Ryan Howard's at-bats were something similar to when he's hitting the ball real good. He stayed on the fastball good, and he definitely made contact with the breaking ball. He kind of hit a high breaking ball for a home run, but he had a real good at-bat on the sac fly with the bases loaded. That was a tremendous at-bat. Of course he played a big role in us winning tonight.

Q. Since 2008, you guys have been very good in Game 1 of the series. I believe you're 8 and 1. Can you pinpoint a reason why that might be and how important is it to jump out to an early lead in a series?
CHARLIE MANUEL: I think tonight Roy Halladay, they jumped out with three runs in the first inning and he ended up retiring 21 guys in a row. He kept the game right there. He stopped the game and he kept it there, and he gave us a chance to score runs.
And I think I said that in my interview today, that's usually how we win. We put some runs on the board tonight, more than we usually do. But at the same time, hitting was big for us, and of course we had to score. Howard's home run was big.

Q. That was going to be my question about Halladay; after that first inning and the way he got into a groove, did you sense after a couple innings that was a huge momentum swing that he had shut them down and kind of allowed you guys to tread water?
CHARLIE MANUEL: Yeah, he was kind of like a Rocky movie. He got mad after he gave up the homer. That ticked him off and he hung in there and he got going. But he's special. He's everything that people talk about.

Q. Was there any thought to letting Roy pitch into the ninth inning?
CHARLIE MANUEL: After we got the lead like we'd had, no. He was going to go out there if we don't add on, but once we got to 11, Rich (Dubee) and I decided we were going to take him out.

Q. When you were down three runs and the lead-off man got on in the second, how important was Howard's play on Jay in that game?
CHARLIE MANUEL: That was big. That was real good. That was very big.

Q. Were you surprised that the Cardinals left Lohse in to pitch to Howard in the sixth inning given the success that Ryan has had in his career against Kyle?
CHARLIE MANUEL: I think, no, not really, because I think Lohse when he played for us, I think that he's had success against us because he knows how to pitch us. I think what happened was he ended up making a mistake, and he paid for it. But I think Tony probably left him in actually because he knows every guy on our team just about.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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