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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: CARDINALS v BREWERS

October 15, 2011

Shaun Marcum

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN: Workout Day

Q. Shaun, do you still feel confident? Do you feel good going into this start? I mean obviously there were a couple of rocky runs earlier in the post season, but how do you feel going into tomorrow's start?
SHAUN MARCUM: Feel good. Feel great actually. There was more than a couple rocky ones heading into, but feel good, arm feels good, body feels good. Just a matter of going out there, keeping the ball down, throwing strikes and trying to get ahead of these hitters.
They've swung the bats well all year long. They've got one of the best offenses obviously in the National League but in baseball, so gotta go out there and make pitches against them.

Q. Does your confidence waiver at all when you go through a rough patch like this, especially this being the playoffs and everything?
SHAUN MARCUM: No. Being in the American League East, I was used to getting beat up every now and again playing those guys over there. So just something that happens.
Baseball's a weird game. You can go out there and pitch well against some teams and you can go out there and get hammered by some. That's just how this game works.
Confidence is still as high as it's ever been. It's just a matter of going out there and making pitches and locating them and trying to get some outs.

Q. How about for the whole team? Is the vibe in there now and on the flight different?
SHAUN MARCUM: No. The vibe on the plane was good. Everybody was same we've been all year, whether we won or lost. People were talking, joking, laughing. There was some music going on.
Guys in the clubhouse are not everybody's really here yet, so I haven't seen what's going on in there. But for the most part it's the same group. Everybody's relaxed.
It's just like Game 5 for me when we played Arizona we gotta come out and play a great baseball game. We gotta put the past behind us. We can't worry about Monday. We gotta get to Monday first. We got come out tomorrow and play one of our best games of the year.

Q. Does that experience in Game 2, is that something you can really apply and help when you go into the next start, say look at the film or you've faced these hitters a lot anyway during the regular season. But is there something when you look at that game specifically?
SHAUN MARCUM: No. I won't look at that game. There's so many other games, so many other things that have gone on, but I will look at it a little bit, but I won't focus just on that game.
I'll be going back and pretty much doing what I've done all year, going back and looking at everybody how they've pitched him. Obviously, like I said, for me it's location. I'm not a guy that's throwing 95. So why try now? I gotta go out there and locate and make pitches and keep the ball down and get outs and get the ball to the bullpen with the lead.

Q. Do you feel like you've been pitching to your strengths recently or have you gotten outside of yourself a little bit?
SHAUN MARCUM: I feel like I've done all right. And one of my goals after coming back after the Allstar break was to establish my fastball, and I went through a stretch where I was doing that. I was able to locate my fastball at any count at any time anywhere I wanted to, and lately I haven't been able to do that, but for me that's one pitch that I have to use or I'm not going to be in the game that long.

Q. Ron never wavered publicly when we were asking what he's going to do for Game 6 when he was going to start you. Did any doubt ever creep into your mind after those first playoff starts?
SHAUN MARCUM: No. No, not at all. I know they had a lot of confidence in me and just talking with Ron and Rick, and even guys in the clubhouse, you know, I think they felt that they're comfortable with me going out there, and you know, it's nice to have that kind of support.

Q. Rick Kranitz, how did you guys develop a relationship? Tell me how he helps you.
SHAUN MARCUM: When I got the job, I believe I was one of the first few that he called in the off-season. I knew Rick from playing against him when he was at Baltimore. So he knows me quite well, just how I pitch, my style and everything like that.
You know, just him as a pitching coach he's very similar to what I had in Toronto with Bruce Walton, very laid back, but also very good at what they do. And when I mean that, their scouting reports. They're very in-depth. They really work hard at what they do.
And he's a guy that doesn't come in and try to change everybody's mechanics and make them throw the same way or do anything. He tries to take your strengths and make them better and take your weaknesses and get them up to where you've got more than one or two quality pitches, and that's something he's really helped me out with this year is getting my curveball back to being able to use it a little bit more.
Go back and look at a lot of my starts last year, if I throw 100 pitches, I probably threw four curveballs a game. It just was a pitch that I never used, and for Rick to have confidence and put confidence in me to use that pitch, you know, like I said, I started in Spring Training with him to be able to use that pitch and it's something that we've done this year.

Q. Shaun, no one probably needs to explain to you the magnitude of an elimination game, but for you personally what's it like knowing that you're going to start this game?
SHAUN MARCUM: Exciting. You know, this is definitely the biggest game of my career, probably all the guys in the clubhouse, too, except for the few that have won the World Series.
So definitely a big game, but it's baseball. It's another game. You just gotta take it at that. We can't put too much pressure on ourselves. We just gotta go out there and play the game, play the game the right way, do what we've done all year, play every out as hard as we can and go out there, and like I said earlier, have one of the best games of the year tomorrow.

Q. You said you were not throwing 95 miles an hour. Where is your velocity now? Has it changed from earlier in the year and how important is that?
SHAUN MARCUM: You know, I haven't really paid attention. If I had to guess, it's probably about the same, 87 to 88, 89. That's just one of those things.
Like I said, I'm not a guy that worries about velocity anyway. It's more about location with me. If I can locate my pitches and try to get quick outs, the better off I'm going to be. But velocity has never really been something that's played into my mind and it's never going to.

Q. Do you pattern your style or the way you pitch from somebody else?
SHAUN MARCUM: Well, when I was younger growing up, I loved watching Brad Radke pitch, fastball change-up type of guy. But nowadays when I watch film I go back and try to look at certain pitchers. I watch Lohse, when we're facing other teams. I watch a guy like Kyle Lohse.
I watch obviously Roy Halladay from playing with him. But the most part when I watch film it's guys that are very similar to me that throw fastball, changeup, cutter and a curveball, but I'm not going to go in the film room and watch somebody like Edwin Jackson. That's not going to do me any good. Just try to find guys that you're similar to.

Q. You've been a starter a long time. You know the cycles of starting. How eager are you to just get the ball and get on the mound instead of having to talk about this waiting and thinking back to your last start, do this media stuff, et cetera?
SHAUN MARCUM: I'm excited. Any time you get a chance to pitch it's something you take and you go out there and compete your butt off. That's what I'm going to do.
Going back to the last start, we were going into St. Louis hoping we would get back here so I could pitch again. We were able to get a win there. We're obviously down 3-2, but just like they've said and we've said it from day one, it's the first one of four, so it doesn't matter what the series is. We gotta win tomorrow and try to force a Game 7, so that's all I'm really focused on right now is going out there and making pitches and try and get the ball to the bullpen. If I can get the ball to Sammy, Frankie, John Axford with the lead, I think we're doing something right.

Q. With the biggest game of your life tomorrow, I'm just curious what will you do tonight? Do you try to relax or do you try to motivate yourself? What will you be doing?
SHAUN MARCUM: Probably have some dinner, watch some college football, depends on who's playing and get some sleep and try to figure out what I'm we play tomorrow. Obviously we won't know that until later tonight when the Tiger game is over.
I'm not going to put pressure on myself 24 hours before the game starts or anything like that. Just staying relaxed; my brother's coming in, my dad's here. So we'll probably just hang out at the house and watch some football.

Q. You touched on this a little bit and Randy did after you guys won the Game 5 last series. Getting that opportunity to pitch again, knowing, you know, that your last start isn't going to be the last one of the season, going into this how much does it mean that you do get an opportunity and that your last outing wasn't the last one?
SHAUN MARCUM: It means a lot. You know, I think I'm on the bandwagon with everybody in here, probably everybody in the country that wants to see Yo versus Carp in Game 7. So I'm going to try to get the ball to Yo.

Q. Randy raised some eyebrows after his win the other night talking about how he didn't shower and didn't eat or anything after his -- the way things went for him in the last game. How did you react to your last start?
SHAUN MARCUM: A lot better than the first one. The first one that was tough to swallow, because you know, we lost the next one and then we're fortunate we're coming back here Game 5, not knowing if you're going to get another opportunity to pitch was definitely hard to swallow.
But in St. Louis we came back and got a win and I knew I was going to get a chance to pitch again. So it was a lot easier. I definitely showered and did all that, though.

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