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AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v RAYSOctober 4, 2011Joe MaddonTAMPA, FLORIDA: Game Four THE MODERATOR: Good morning, Joe. Thank you for coming in. Q. Joe, you can probably look at this either way, but do you feel like it's a good thing with the short turnaround from last night to today after the loss? JOE MADDON: I prefer a little bit more rest personally. You have to sleep fast on nights like that. It doesn't -- I guess it doesn't matter all that much, but I would -- it would have been nice a little bit later into the day start, just to give a little bit more rest, that's it, without getting too complicated about it. But it's 2:00, so we have to get ready to go. Q. Joe, do you sense a confidence issue with J.P. Howell right now? JOE MADDON: Well, I mean, he's definitely beating himself up a little bit. Listen, before we begin this series we felt really good about him on this team, and we still do. And particularly in that situation yesterday, that's what he was on the team for. Really like him and his stuff versus Hamilton. And, again, I really want to make this clear, I don't understand why everybody is piling on J.P. right now, because we walked some guys to get to that particular position. We gave up a couple stolen bases and we had chances to get other hits. J.P. gave up a single to right field, and that's going to happen. Josh Hamilton is a pretty good hitter. For me, personally, I have not lost any faith in Howell. This guy has been a significant member of our team in the past and he will be in the future. He's a wonderful young man and he's got great team abilities. He's one of the better teammates in that locker room. So it is unfortunate that he put a pitch on the end of Josh Hamilton's bat, but he was put on this team specifically for that reason, to face Hamilton with his veteranship and poise in the past. I am talking about J.P. So it's unfortunate that it worked out that way, but we had other opportunities to win that game. So, for me, I'm a big J.P. fan. Q. Good morning, Skip. JOE MADDON: Good morning, sir. Q. For the 500th time, it seems like your back's up against the wall. Is there a point where you just stop thinking about there -- these are must-win games, or do they make you stronger? How does the group feel about being under this pressure for it seems like forever? JOE MADDON: Like you say, you have been with us the whole time here, and we have been playing this game for a while. I know it is a little bit different in the sense if you don't win you go home, but we played those last six games at home here versus the Blue Jays and Yankees and felt we had to win all of them. We lost one of those, and then we got ourselves into the playoffs. I believe you will feel -- if you walk in the locker room before the game begins, you will see the same group, the same method regarding getting ready to play today. I don't think you are going to see anything different about that. Of course, you would rather it be 2-1, but I like Hellie today a lot. I like our guys here a lot today. And, again, breaking down the last three games, I know they have beaten us 2 out of 3, but we played some pretty good baseball. They have beaten us up in two innings particularly, otherwise we have done all right. So today hopefully we will make sure that they don't get the big inning. And if they don't, maybe we'll get our way again today and get it back to Texas. But we have played this game several times since September 9th. Q. Joe, just to clarify your pitching scenario for the rest of the way here. You talked about Shields for 5. Is that official yet? JOE MADDON: Yeah, Shields will have 5. Q. If Hellickson were to struggle, who would be first in today, Davis or... JOE MADDON: It depends on the situation. Matt should be available today. You know what you do in a moment like that, if there is a struggle, you normally would try to get out of an inning and then get another guy to start the next inning. So we'll see how that all works out. But hopefully Hellie will be on top of his game today. It's a good lineup. I haven't seen it, but I imagine there is going to be Hamilton and Moreland and Murphy, I think. They will have three lefties in there, I believe, otherwise a bunch of righties. Jeremy is throwing the ball well. What I really gauge Jeremy off of is more recently I have seen a lot of 92 fastballs, 92 miles per hour. When he is at that range, his change-up really works well off that. With Jeremy today if you are seeing down fastball really located down, called strike, if he is throwing his change-up off that, well, he will have himself a good day. Q. Hey, Joe. What are you seeing now from Jennings that you weren't seeing when he went through that little skid at the end of the season, or what were you seeing during the skid you don't normally see? JOE MADDON: I thought -- again, this is really a weird term, I thought he was taking the ball badly and he was really getting out over his front side. Kind of like jumping at the ball a little bit and leaning over as he took pitches. Now he is more upright. He has been up, more upright since the game we knocked him back to the 8-hole or 7-hole against you guys over there. Thought about a couple things and he has come back and he is entirely different. So I'm seeing him better posture at the plate, he's not missing his pitch all of a sudden again, and he is looking more like he did when he first came back up. But he got into this habit of lunging or jumping at the ball, and he is not doing it right now. Q. Joe, how do you compare this Rangers team to the one you played last year in the first round as well? JOE MADDON: Really good. They are just minus Cliff Lee. That's about it. They added Beltre, and he did a really good job. And Napoli having a hell of a year for them also. Otherwise, you're seeing a lot of the same. The bullpen is definitely different in some positive ways for them, too. I guess any time you subtract a Cliff Lee, it's never a good thing. But they have a lot of good young arms also that have done a great job for them, as well as the addition of a Beltre at third base. You saw the play made at the end of the game last night, a tremendous play. So they're different but the same in a lot of ways. They are very formidable. They are not easy. These games -- they were 5-4 against us during the season and now 2-1 against us now. We play them very well. It's a tooth-and-nail kind of situation, but they have a lot of different kind of weapons offensively and defensively and you can't make the mistakes like we made yesterday, or even in Texas, hit batter, hit batter, wild pitch, wild pitch. Those are the kind of things that have beaten us. Yesterday, walk, walk, and then a couple stolen bases. We can't be doing those kind of things, otherwise they will beat you. But they are formidable. They are very good. But I also like the Rays a lot, too. Q. Joe, just two things. One, what was the actual situation with Price's fingernail last night? JOE MADDON: Yeah, it just kind of cracked on him a little bit. I didn't actually see it. Ronnie told me what had happened and they took care of it and thought it would be fine. And David never complained. I saw him occasionally doing the thing where he was looking at his fingernails, but did not hear any complaints. Q. Do you sense extra frustration with Longoria with his night? JOE MADDON: I didn't really glom on to that. Did he react differently after game the? He did? I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Possibly. I don't know that. But he has been so good. He carries a lot of the burden on himself, and that's why he's the great player that he is. And he's going to be even better in the years to come. I didn't know that. I honestly didn't know that because of all of the responsibilities after the game. But I know one thing: He will be there today. He had some tough at-bats yesterday. But, listen, it's not going to be an oil painting every night, and I understand that. He's a big, big reason why we're in this moment while I'm sitting up here tonight or this afternoon or this morning, whatever it is. So Longo is going to be fine. That's one thing about our boys, they are very resilient. I don't think we carry things to the next day too often. We win. We try to win for 30 minutes hard, we try to -- we lose for 30 minutes hard, and then we move on to the next day. Sometimes it is a bit more difficult, I won't deny that. But I really believe Longo will be fine. Q. Good morning, Joe. Last night the heart of the order was 1-10 with 6 Ks. D.J. really had for the big part of the night most of the offensive production. Do you tweak that approach at all, the hitting approach at the plate to get Jeremy some support? JOE MADDON: Do you tweak the other guys? I don't understand. Q. Does the hitting approach change at all today? JOE MADDON: Oh, well, it's the pitcher. It's about the pitcher. Lewis is really good and he made some really good pitches yesterday. Today's momentum is always going to be generated by the starting pitcher or pitchers. He was good. He was very good. He has been good against us. He is not going to get a Christmas card from me, I promise you that. He has been that way for a couple years now. That's what you saw; that's what I saw. We knew that going into it. With the righties, he is very domineering with right-handed hitters. He doesn't throw that hard but really locates the fastball and has exceptional slider that just kind of disappears. One is more like just a spinner and the other one will actually have some depth to it. He is just good. But, I mean, we battled through it. We had opportunities later in the game. So, yeah, he was very good yesterday, but I thought we continue to do our typical grinding out of the night and had opportunities to win late, and they just got us. Q. Joe, the Rangers have been pretty aggressive on the bases, like they were in last year's playoffs. I think four steals last night. I know you have Shop behind the plate tonight, but is part of that on the pitcher, too, as far as time to the plate? What are you seeing as far as why they are so successful? JOE MADDON: Because they do their homework, too, and they know when it is a good time to go. A lot of it is on the pitcher. It's not -- that's the thing about base stealing, when you're trying to pregame imagine or game plan against who you are going to steal with, a lot of times or most of the times it is versus the pitcher, not the catcher. Most Major League catchers given a chance, a solid chance to throw out a runner will do it. Normally 30%, 33% is considered average, although I think it is less than that in today's game. And Shop is above average or well above average this year. But they're good at that. You watch their defense, you just watch what they do in general, they are very similar to us. Their game planning's good. For instance, you saw a line drive by Zobrist on the first-base line where Moreland caught it, and another ball hit later in the game well struck down the first-base line versus Lewis. They are obviously playing heavy pull right there based on their intel. And even the line drive earlier in the game to right field, the right fielder was playing towards the line. So they game plan well. That's a part of their success. It is a big part of our success. They have some really athletic defenders out there, too. That's why it is such an evenly matched series. I have a lot of respect for what they do and how they do it, and for a lot of reasons. Part of the reason is the fact that I believe it is very similar to the way we do things. Q. Joe, can you reflect for just a moment, go back to the exodus of the free agents, the bad starts. If somebody would have stood there and told you, Joe, I know it is not going too well in the beginning of the season, but you will be here in the ALDS Game 4 facing elimination, would you have taken that and happily jumped up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning? JOE MADDON: 11 out of 10 times I would have taken that. Yes, it is a pretty good situation to be in right now. We did start -- you all know what we did this year. The really tough start, but tremendous rebound from that. Our record has been spectacular since the start. We had to fight really hard to get here. Beyond all that, the present-tense guys, and we did lose a lot of really good players from last season, and we knew that. We knew that was going to happen when the offseason started to arrive. Andrew and I spoke a lot about it, and you just start making your plans for the future. We did some great things. I mean, John Damon has been a life send to us on and off the field, meaning in the clubhouse. He has been spectacular. And then you get a bullpen, which is my biggest concern out of Spring Training, was how do you get that together and how do you make that a workable group. And they have been fabulous, and it has been spearheaded by Kyle and Joel, and everybody else has pretty much worked around them. Beyond everything, it's about the starting pitching. The starting pitching has made all of this work. And that's the one thing in the offseason when I talked about the demise of the Rays, it's been greatly exaggerated, was the fact I knew we had this great young starting group of pitchers. So if you don't have that core group of starters, there's no way you could compete or did what we did this year. It is impossible. But the fact that we did have that group, they made the bullpen better. We didn't have to score as many runs to win games because they were so good. And every night you take the field, just talking about momentum, we know every night we play we have a pretty good chance of winning because of our starters. For a lot of different reasons it has been a fabulous year. And we're going to continue on. Like I said, I feel really good about today. Let's get it back to Texas and continue the trek. But I am really, really, again, proud of our fellows. THE MODERATOR: All right, thank you, Joe. JOE MADDON: You're welcome. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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