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NL DIVISION SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS v BREWERS

October 5, 2011

Ron Roenicke

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Four

Q. Can you guys smile about the fact that George draws a lefty again? What do you make of that?
RON ROENICKE: Yeah, that was kind of wild during the season this year. I think for a while there he was about 50/50 on lefties and righties. And then at the end there he got a few more right-handers. But it doesn't surprise me that he's got another lefty today.

Q. You said in Spring Training that it wasn't going to be that pairing all year, and then it ended up being that pairing all year. What changed that for you guys as you got into the year?
RON ROENICKE: How they worked together and how I think Randy and Luc got frustrated trying to work it out with them. Wolf, as you guys know, he likes to have that nice rhythm going, and he was frustrated with Luc. And Luc got frustrated with him.
I don't know, you know, next year, I sure would like to get those guys together, so we don't have to do this, especially with the left-handed pitchers going against George. George works well with him. And I think it's important that a pitcher/catcher be on the same page, have that rhythm going.
Again, it's not something that I like to do, but it worked out well and we stuck with it. And I think also the timing is right where that's about what, I think, a starting catcher needs is about one day off every 5th day. So I think it works out well that way.

Q. Staying with the theme of catcher/pitcher conflict. It wasn't apparent until we saw the film last night after the game how much trouble Marcum and Lucroy seemed to be having with the Goldschmidt at-bat. He went out there once, he went back, he flashed a sign, he got put off. They looked totally out of sorts on that.
RON ROENICKE: I'm not sure about the whole thing. But a lot of that was the baserunner on second base and making sure that he wasn't giving location or pitch. So you noticed the last pitch Luc never gave a sign. And I think that was because they were making sure that they got -- the guy at second base wasn't relaying location to the hitter.

Q. Also, we also wondered what you thought of Shaun flipping his glove up in the air, you don't see a pitcher do that very often. And he made it clear to us afterwards that he was not on board with walking Montero.
RON ROENICKE: Well, I think anytime you have a starting pitcher out there that competes like he does, he's not going to want to walk anybody. He feels confident enough that he can pitch around people. And that's the way you want them to feel.
I wouldn't want to go out there and Shaun say, hey, I don't want any part of this guy. Let's pitch to the next guy. So I think that's just he's a competitor. He thinks he has enough command of his pitches that he can pitch around somebody when he needs to. So that's -- hey, that's all right.

Q. The glove flip?
RON ROENICKE: The glove flip? Yeah, I'd rather him not do that. But I guess he knew right away it was a home run. I wasn't sure -- I knew it was hit well.
But, yeah, I mean, you know, same thing. Competitor, emotional. Sometimes they do some things out there that they probably the next day they probably wish they wouldn't have done either.

Q. How do you guard against the kind of emotional roller coaster that the postseason can become with every game being so meaningful and the results change from day-to-day, how does that work?
RON ROENICKE: Well, as far as the team's emotions? I think a lot of teams really play off of momentum changes. I think our team hasn't really been that way this year. I think we've been in so many ups and downs that they're really good at turning the page. They don't necessarily worry about that bad game that they played the day before. They'll bounce back and have a nice game.
But some teams have been on that it is important. It's important what you do the day before, and how you roll into the next day. But I think we've been really good when we've had poor played games to bounce back the next day and play a good game.

Q. You go back a ways with Joe Saunders with the Angels for a while. What's your take on him and your relationship having been on the same organization for a number of years?
RON ROENICKE: Joe and I used to talk quite a bit. I like Joe. He's a good competitor. He's a pitcher that when he gets confident and he gets on a roll, he can throw a lot of great ballgames in a row. I saw him the year the first half of the season, dominated, made the All-Star Team.
But I like him. He's a good guy. He competes. He works hard. And like I said, when he's got his confidence and his command going, he's a really good pitcher.

Q. How do you expect to attack him tonight?
RON ROENICKE: Well, I really don't think I should say that, to tell you the truth. We'll just -- we'll try to get after him like we do other people, but I don't want to say how we're going to go after him.

Q. You have Gomey back in center tonight against a lefty. Can you talk about how he's evolved to be so nice in that role. It became obvious that playing him every day wasn't working. But it seems like since you've been doing that it's benefited the team and him, it seems like.
RON ROENICKE: Well, I think it has. When we put him out there defensively, for one, I don't think there's anybody in baseball as good as him in centerfield. This is a fabulous centerfielder. So I always like to put him out there.
Offensively, you know, we tried early in the season, he played a bit more, wasn't working out that well and we started noticing numbers getting better against left-handers. And I think when it was just Nyjer and him, they really could play center. It worked out real nice for both of them.
I think it helped Nyjer, also. Nyjer was hitting left-handers well in the beginning, but I think in the long run I think it helped Nyjer's season, having Gomey spell him once in a while.
And then when Gomey started taking off, he did a real nice job for us. Right before he got hurt was doing real well. And then when he came back, he kind of fit right into that role again. Last three or four games have been outstanding for him offensively. Driven the ball. He's on base.
He's also a great base stealer, which I love to have him out there. When it's on the line and you need a base stolen, he's as good as there is in stealing bases, also.
Very valuable guy for our club and what he's done for us this year.

Q. His at-bats look better. Do you think he's focused more because he doesn't take for granted that he's going to play every day and he knows this might be the only day I play for a few days? Do you think he is more focused at the plate? Do you even agree he's having better at-bats?
RON ROENICKE: He's having better at-bats, no doubt. I don't know if it's focus with him so much. He may be a guy that just really likes that left-hander.
But he's played really well the last, like I said, the last three or four games, really swung the bat well. He's a guy maybe if you put him out there every day, I think maybe more than focus, I think he's another guy that's very emotional. He gets pretty fired up when he's not hitting the ball well, and really hard on himself. So maybe this allows himself to not take it so hard like he does.

Q. Give me your assessment on Josh Collmenter. You guys have now faced him a number of times and he seems to have your number. Is there anything special about this rookie that seems to put these great performances together against the Brewers?
RON ROENICKE: Yeah, Collmenter has really got an unusual delivery, which I talked about, in making him have that deception that he has.
If you go back and look at last night's game, we got a few pitches to hit. And they're not 95. And they're in a good part of the plate to hit. And we pop them up or we foul them or we miss them. He's got good deception and he's got a great change-up.
I think with the deception on his fastball -- and you look at velocities last night, whatever they were, 87, 88, he hits 90, it plays 93, 94. It plays way higher than what it comes out on the radar gun.
But the change-up keeps everybody off guard. He keeps it down in the zone. He's got great motion with his arm on it. And he can throw for strikes when he needs to.
But like you said, three games we haven't touched him. We won't see him again this year, that's a good thing. And we'll see if we can make some adjustments maybe next year against him.

Q. The Diamondbacks are aggressive, between the base pass, steal bases. Randy is a lefty. Kottaras is catcher today. Is that sort of an effort to keep one way of their attack at bay?
RON ROENICKE: Well, they're aggressive. They're going to be aggressive. I think a left-handed pitcher in today's game, you don't so much read the move as you're just going for his move. So you're guessing when he's going to throw over and when he's going to go home.
If they guess right with their guys that have speed, it doesn't give George much of a chance to throw people out. Randy is going to be, whatever he is to home plate, 1-4, or whatever he's going to be.
It doesn't give you the opportunity to throw guys out like a Marcum. Marcum is 1-1 to home. And a catcher should be able to throw out anybody out when he's 1-1 to home. The difference is they've just got to guess right.

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