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AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v RAYSOctober 3, 2011Joe MaddonTAMPA, FLORIDA: Game Three THE MODERATOR: Joe Maddon has arrived and we'll get started. Q. Joe, we are going to have a full house today. When the Trop is full it's always loud. I know that the other night when James got into some trouble, Texas crowd was loud and could have played something into it. What do you expect from this crowd tonight influencing the actual game itself? JOE MADDON: I hope in a positive way. It is very raucous in this building when it gets to that point. Our guys have normally responded to it very well. We had those concert series on weekend nights and we had a pretty good record for that. That's normally when we get our sellout. So we're looking forward to that. And normally, like I said, our players do respond. It's loud. I'm telling you, because even like Davey and I having a conversation is not easy. It's incredible to think that, but he is standing right next to me, and it is hard to hear him. Yeah, it's an incredible day for Tampa Bay area sports in general, also with the Bucs tonight with the Monday Night Football game. I think that's great. I was wondering on the way in how many people will go to both events, come to our game and then sneak on over there to see them. It's quite a day, and hopefully we can pull off the double-header win. Q. Joe, could you describe the issues that Kyle Farnsworth is dealing with right now in terms of his health and whether it will affect when you would use him or if you would use him managing this game? JOE MADDON: He just had a little soreness in the -- kind of the forearm into the elbow area. It's sore, and he had these things in his history. And so we had to back off him towards the end of the season, and brought him back towards the end and he was well and he threw the ball very good. We used him four out of five days, I think, or four out of five games. And with that he got a little bit sore again. There is nothing seriously wrong, but I just have to monitor this. We have to monitor this. Going into today's game, based on what he had told me the last couple of days, I think he's feeling pretty good. So I haven't really spoken to him yet but I am anticipating good today. That's just what we got going on. Q. Would he be the guy at the end or -- JOE MADDON: Yeah, if he is ready to roll, he would be the guy at the end, absolutely. Q. I'm sure for David to struggle in that last game against the Yankees must have been disappointing, and then the comeback obviously gave them another chance. What do you think it meant to him to have that chance here? JOE MADDON: David is -- you guys know him, and ladies, he is a tremendous competitor. And I know he did not walk away from that moment very pleased, and we know that. The thing about Dave when we talk about David Price, the thing that stands out to me is that -- and you have to be with him every day. He is one of the best teammates I have been around in my life. He supports everybody. He supports every position player, every pitcher, every relief pitcher. He is one of the guys that supplies the energy from within. He's a unique individual. His whole life he's been the best. And he goes through high school to college to professionally, and then what he did in 2008, etc. My point is, I have so much faith in this guy. I know it hasn't worked out well recently for him, but I will always support and back up this guy. And want him to pitch important games. He has all the makings, the trappings to be this incredibly clutch performer over the next 10 years, I don't even know, because he takes such wonderful care of himself. So I am very excited about this actually. I think you are going to see the best of David Price today. And, like I said, everything we do here for me and for us as a group, it's always we keep one eye on the present, one eye on the future all the time. And so these are the kind of moments that here's a guy that always supports us. I mean, he supports us day in and day out. We need to support David, and I think we will be rewarded for that, in the present tense and also in the future, by how this is all coming together. Q. As Jeremy gets set for Game 4, is it safe to say with his experience over the last year and a half he has graduated from the ranks of a rookie, at least in your mind? JOE MADDON: I just had that conversation with our writers. I have to be reminded that he is a rookie. You hear his name in the Rookie of the Year conversation, and the fact that we got -- it was brought up if we were to win today we have a chance to have a rookie win the first and the last game of a playoff series. Kind of an unusual thought. But I always fail to put Hellie into that group. I just don't -- he's different. The way he has pitched for us. Last year he pitched some really impressive games quickly. We didn't use him a lot towards the end, we were worried about the future of him, also. But he does, he handles the moment extremely well. You'll see him step back when he is really upset, push the hat back up on his head and rub the ball a little bit harder than normal. That's when he is really upset. He has tremendous ability and skill and he has this wonderful pulse about him that permits him to be as good as he is at this early age. We are fortunate with him and a lot of our other young guys. Q. Another story about Jeremy's temperament to handle this occasion or any occasion? What did you see as you got to know him that led you to believe that this was a guy with not much of -- not affected by these things? JOE MADDON: Not unlike Matt Moore, I didn't really see Hellie pitch before he arrived here. Not exactly the same. I never saw Hellie. I am always relying on conversations among Minor League people, scouts, Andrew, etc., and I always kept hearing about that, that part of him. Great make-up, you know. Really this ability to really remain calm in difficult moments. And then, further, when you look at his track record of success, this guy was always successful wherever he had been. And then you look at the face and it belies all of that because he has this baby-faced look about him. So we as a group have always been told this about him. I watch him, and the thing about him -- it's the word sneaky. It is like if you watch his fastball from the side, he's got this easy delivery and it's kind of a short arm comes out of here and it just jumps on the hitter. It's sneaky. Not unlike his look. You look at his face and you think, Come on, this guy can't be that good. He's not that kind of experienced, he can't have those kind of pitches. But he does. He just sneaks up on people. In a good way. He's not duplicitous at all; that is not part of his personality. He's uniquely different and we're very -- again, I feel fortunate as a steward of these young pitchers to have guys of this ability and make-up. It's unusual, man. It's very unusual. And that's what I said before. The one eye on the present, the one eye on the future. Of course this has been a special year, but I want many more special years to come. And a lot of it has to do with the nurturing of our young pitching staff. And he really fits that mold extremely well. Q. When you came out to talk to Kerwin Danley after Murphy hit that little number in front of the plate, did you ask him to get help, and what did he say? JOE MADDON: No, he told me that he saw the bat, the ball hit the bat again. So, I mean, at that point, okay, I'm not going to call you a liar. That's an easy explanation. Because I couldn't tell that from the side. So the balls hit and the batter's swing somehow knocks the ball from foul to fair. Okay. I got it. And that's what he said to me, and I just accepted that as true at that point. If he had been any kind of hesitant at all, which he wasn't, I may have asked for him to do something like that, but he was right on. He said: No, this is what happened. And I would also -- when you hear an answer like that, I believe that when an umpire is also standing 100-plus feet away, he is going to tell me exactly that. He was standing right there. And he had that call and I really couldn't tell from that distance. So I just thought that it was the kind of answer that makes you just turn around and go back to the dugout. Maybe you knew that. Q. Joe, back to last Wednesday with Price. You stayed with him under a pressure situation a really long time I thought. Is he the kind of guy, with your experience with him, that he will find it if he is having trouble finding it during a game? Is that why you stayed with him that long? JOE MADDON: Part of it may have been the factor there may have been a game the next day. With the fact there may have been a game the next day and it is 7-0, to blow up your bullpen is not really a good thought right there. I tried to stayed with him as long as we could, and then after that we went to other guys, maybe not the guts of the bullpen, to try to maintain that moment. I think it went to 7-0 on the home run by Andruw Jones. The home run made it 7-0, I believe. And so we -- that's what I am thinking. So if he could have gone longer, it would have been even better, then the other guys don't have to play either as relief pitchers, but that was my thought. It wasn't necessarily that he was going to get himself right. I didn't see that happening. But there was a threat of 163rd game and maybe all hands on deck. That's why I waited that long in that particular game. Q. Joe, the rotation was developed over years and built up. The bullpen, much of it was cobbled together right before the season. JOE MADDON: Good word. Q. If this turns out to be a bullpen series, does that necessarily mean things are going wrong for you? JOE MADDON: Not necessarily. It's one of the things, though, with the Texas Rangers, you don't want to get into a bullpen war with them. They pretty much stacked up their pen. And after having said that, the ascension recently of Brandon Gomes and Jake McGee made our bullpen a lot thicker, also. Albeit, that's with a healthy and well Kyle Farnsworth at the end of it, which matters a lot. Part of the reason we put Wade Davis was out there for a lot of these different reasons to augment that group. And the fact that we think he can do well there. But sometimes it doesn't always -- the appearance may not actually mean what it actually is, meaning the fact that the Rangers bullpen on paper really does play well. But I think our guys are really come a long way more recently, and I'm very, very pleased with that group. You saw -- I mean, Gomey gave up a home run the other day to Moreland, but he could have made a different pitch right there, and I think he's going to learn from that moment as an example. Jake hit somebody the other day, but I still like the fact you give him the ball and his heartbeat is good. And I keep referencing that I think it is very, very important. I think our bullpen developed really nicely at the time right time now. But again, going into this, I don't want to get into a bullpen war with the Texas Rangers. But I kind of like what our guys are doing right now. Q. When we spoke to you yesterday, you were undecided at shortstop. Can you describe what tilted you to Reid this afternoon? JOE MADDON: A lot of it. You look at Lewis's numbers. We do a lot of our own little work, and there was a lot of evenness between Reid and Sean. But looking a little bit more deeply into Lewis, you look at his numbers, right and left, they are incredibly different, even to the point where I was somewhat toying with the idea of messing with the batting order a little bit because he has been kind of deft on righties. I wanted to keep the integrity at the top, but those three guys have been doing a great job. And then just stacked the left-handers. There's six lefties in a row after that. We will see how that all works out. Reid fit into that. The kind of pitcher that Lewis is, the kind of hitter that Reid is, I think still there might be a drive to right center in there, and we're definitely not losing anything on defense with Reid. Reid is spectacular. For a lot of different reasons. And these are the kind of things you mull over. On the bike ride this morning again, thinking about it, trying to come to good conclusions. We are fluid on a daily basis regarding our lineups and the structure, etc. At the end of the day, it is my best guess, and I thought that Reid was the right guy for today. THE MODERATOR: I think we are good. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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