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MLB WORLD SERIES: RANGERS v CARDINALS

October 23, 2011

Ron Washington

ARLINGTON, TEXAS: Game Four

Q. We saw there were some changes toward the bottom of the lineup with Moreland in hitting ninth and I guess Napoli eighth. Tell us a little bit about your thinking there.
RON WASHINGTON: Just wanted to break up my lefties, that's all. I didn't want to run Murphy and Moreland together, so I broke them up.

Q. What's the status of your bullpen right now, and particularly Ogando from a physical and mental standpoint?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, mentally he's fine. I talked with him today. He's doing well. Physically we've just got to wait and see how he feels today when he goes out there and does long toss. Other than that, everyone else is available.

Q. The last time any of us got a good look at Moreland was last year at this time when he hit a big World Series homer. How would you describe this past year for him, his development?
RON WASHINGTON: Just exactly what it's been, development. He finally got an opportunity to feel what it's like to go through the grind of 162-game season, and along with that there's ups and downs. Just for a minute there, he lost his stroke, he lost his path, and Coolbaugh is letting me know now, and everybody else that's been working with him is letting me know that he feels like he's found it back, so I'm going to give him a shot tonight.

Q. Assuming Albert Pujols has not been outlawed since last night, have you in your own mind gone over any plans that you might not normally implement to pitch around him?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, my plans were the same as always, try not to give him anything to hit. Last night we made four mistakes in the middle of the plate. That can't happen. We'll try to make an adjustment today and see where it goes. It's obvious he's one of the best baseball players in the game as far as offense goes, and he showed you how good he is defensively and running the bases. He's complete. But we've just got to execute better.

Q. What's the best way to move beyond an experience like last night?
RON WASHINGTON: Believe in what we've been believing in all year. Each day you play it for what it was. Last night we got beat. We got hit a few times. We might have got knocked down, but we didn't get knocked out, and that's the way we look at it. If we could have done anything on the mound last night, it would have been a different story. We could not stop them off the mound. You certainly didn't see any quit in those guys when they came off the field in that dugout, and we'll have the same attitude today. We've just got to pitch better.

Q. When you faced the Tigers, you kind of went through an evolution of thought with Cabrera. At the beginning of the series you were pitching to him, and then you tried to pitch and he was getting hits and then you pitched around him. Is it possible the same thing will happen in this series with Albert?
RON WASHINGTON: Yes, it is, there's no doubt about it. We certainly weren't trying to put those pitches where we put them last night, but like I said, we've just got to do a better job. We've got to find a way to keep him from extending and we've got to find a way to expand the zone. All of that goes with pitching.
Once again, we just didn't get it done last night.

Q. What did you see in C.J.'s last start to make you feel good about him tomorrow night?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, I thought he was working the ball rather well down in the zone over in St. Louis. You know, he was much more aggressive, and he was throwing the ball inside. He was moving it around. So I expect after Holland does a good job tonight, C.J. to do a good job tomorrow.

Q. A couple-part question here: Back to Cabrera, I remember sitting in on these press conferences and hearing you saying the exact same thing about mechanically not doing what you were supposed to do with him, and now it's transferred over to Pujols. Why is there a continued issue here? And why have you been in a situation where since the beginning of the ALCS you've used no less than four pitchers every game and sometimes six or seven?
RON WASHINGTON: It's the way the situation is, and if I knew the answer to all of that you just asked, you wouldn't be asking it. You know, I'm the manager, of course, but I can't sit over there on the sideline every time one of those guys comes up and throw up four fingers. We're Major League pitchers. We're playing Major League Baseball. We've got to be able to execute pitches to get done what we need to get done. We didn't get it done. And it could be youth. You understand what I'm saying? It could be youth. I don't know what's going on inside of them, but we've got to execute better. We're doing everything we can behind the scenes to make sure that that happens.
Now, once the game starts, I'm sitting on my perch. I can't throw a pitch. All we can do is keep talking and keep explaining, but the players have to go out there and execute. We just didn't execute. We got past Detroit, and I'm figuring we're going to get past St. Louis. Some kind of way we'll get it done. We always have.

Q. Can you talk about what C.J. has meant to your club, especially this year when you had to move him up into the No. 1 spot in the rotation, the way he responded to that?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, for us he responded as the No. 1 guy. He's taken on every best pitcher that the American League had to offer, and I think he's beat every one of them. You know, tomorrow he'll have Carpenter again. And the key to it is, as I always say about any of my pitchers out there on the mound, just keep us in the ballgame. Keep us in the ballgame. We can strike. But if we're not in the ballgame, striking is hard. That's all I expect out of C.J., and he's certainly been the one guy that's been giving us that opportunity.
Yes, he struggled in the postseason this year, but we still feel that the next time he takes the ball is the time we'll see the C.J. that we know we have.

Q. What is your general attitude about the expansion of instant replay and umpiring?
RON WASHINGTON: Well, you know, I always believed in this game being the human type of game, you know, umpires are human. They can't always be right, and they make mistakes, and you have to play around them. You know, we brought in instant replay for the home run. I think in the World Series for plays like last night, maybe we can find a way to get the play right.
All I want is to get the play right, that's all. And sometimes umpires don't get it right, and there's nothing you can do about it. But you can't fall apart. You can't be looking for excuses, because this is a man's game, and we are men. And as I said, I knew he blew the call last night, but once he let me have my say and I walked off the field, the only thing I told my guys, let's minimize damage. And that's what good teams do, and we are a good team. It's just that last night we made some misplays, and that happens. I don't think you can play perfect in this game, and it just happened in the World Series.
But we're ready to go today. We'll bounce back, and one thing we don't do, we don't let what happened the day before affect what we have to do today. We take what we can out of it, and we use it to the best of our ability and we move forward. And we will be men tonight, that's for sure.

Q. You had a very effective system in the first two rounds where even if your starting didn't go deep into the game, you had Ogando bridge the gap to the late guys. Given his recent struggles and that he might be kind of tired, how does that affect your strategy?
RON WASHINGTON: We'll just have to push someone else in that situation. We've still got Feldman tonight. We've got Mike Adams down there if we have to put him out there earlier than we really want to, and then we'll figure it out once we get to the end.
We'll do what we have to do. We're a team, and when one guy may not have it going on, someone else has to step up. That's the way we've done it all year, and that's the way we will continue to do it until there's no more baseball.

Q. Prior to last night's game, there was so much focus on Ogando versus Allen Craig. Ogando strikes out Craig and left one up high for Albert to hit. Could it be possible that even a great pitcher like him could have a momentary lapse in focus or intensity to execute? And do you think that may have been Tony's thinking in putting Pujols, who was struggling until yesterday, just after Allen Craig?
RON WASHINGTON: No, it had nothing to do with it. Once again, I think you have to give Allen Craig credit. The two pitches that he hit on Ogando, he earned it, because if you have another guy up there, maybe those pitches are by him. And then he struck him out last night on the same pitch that he's been hitting. And I think the difference was he threw him some breaking balls.
Albert? No, he had no lapse on Albert. He just got a pitch in the wrong spot. I don't think at this time of the year you're going to have lapses like that. That's fighting this game all the time. Let up? No, he didn't let up. I think you've just got to tip your hat to Albert. That was 96 miles an hour up at the chest, and he got ahead on it. Maybe he or Cabrera would have been maybe one of the only two guys that could have got ahead on the ball like that and hit it that far. But it so happened it was Albert Pujols. I wish it was John Doe, and maybe it would have gone by him.

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