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MLB WORLD SERIES: RANGERS v CARDINALS

October 23, 2011

Tony La Russa

ARLINGTON, TEXAS: Game Four

St. Louis Cardinals 0
Texas Rangers 4

Q. What were your thoughts on Holland's performance tonight and what made him so effective?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, I would just say he worked us over. Give him credit. I've just got to explain what that means, but basically what happened is he just worked us over and shut us down.

Q. We saw a lot of the guys kind of looking puzzled up there and turning back and having some conversations with the umpire. What was making it so difficult for them to adapt to the strike zone tonight?
TONY LA RUSSA: No comment. I just said we got worked over and can't take credit away from the other side.

Q. The decision to go with Boggs, is that because you've used Salas and Lynn a lot recently and you didn't want to bring Westbrook in in the middle of an inning?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, it looked like it was a bad decision. Missed with his pitch. Actually rushed a little timing and made pitches he was capable of making. Yeah, he's a talented guy, good inning yesterday and he just missed and Napoli didn't.

Q. In your view was Jackson effectively wild or is it a matter if you walk that many, eventually it's going to catch up with you?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, I actually thought in his almost six innings, I thought he was -- deserves a lot of credit. I thought he pitched really well. He gets around the board right away and that's all they get, really. He missed a few times, walked a couple guys, but he kept making pitches. Overall I give him a huge plus for keeping us in the game.

Q. What adjustments did they make to you guys after the big offensive night last night?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, I mean, if you pitch well, you stop good hitting. I mean, we pitched pretty well and it was a 1-0 game, and they won in the sixth with three runs.
Good pitching is always going to stop good hitting. Keep the ball out of the middle.

Q. Before you go home for Game 6 you'll have Carpenter, and as well as he's pitched this postseason how comforting is it to know he could send you home with a lead?
TONY LA RUSSA: If you want to choose somebody from the St. Louis Cardinals to pitch that game, it's Chris. I mean, there isn't anything about pitching on the road in a hostile environment. I think he actually likes it, pitches better. His problem is going to be good hitters, and he'll have to pitch effectively. But we love playing behind him because we know he's going to compete as hard as he can. He's got a lot to compete with.

Q. Just going back to Boggs for a second, it's easy to dwell on it now, but what did you like about that matchup heading into it?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, I thought for sure that Jackson had given us what he had. Boggs went in and as you saw the rest of the time, he gets a ball down in the zone and I thought double play waiting to happen. He made the first pitch and he jumped it.

Q. Kyle said something last night about essentially approaching this lineup in this park every pitch like it's 0-2. Do you think that's sort of what Edwin was doing tonight?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, there's different ways to describe, you know, staying out of the middle of the plate, but you can never think -- well, unless you've got a big lead, you can never think, I'm going to get the ball somewhere over the heart of the plate, especially elevated a little bit and it's going to be good, unless you get lucky.
0-2 is an interesting way to put it. It's kind of true, but it's not really 0-2. So you just have to play the situation and sometimes you have to move it over the plate some. Just got to -- that's going to be the challenge of the series for both teams. You don't have good command, you're going to pay.

Q. After everything Albert did last night, did you see them approaching him specifically any differently than they did?
TONY LA RUSSA: Well, I thought he had really good at-bats. I think he had -- he worked with a couple difficult counts, and that changes. But I thought he put a nice stroke on the ball with Feliz. He hits that ball in the gap, we might have some fun. They worked us over. Nobody centered the ball except Lance, so you've got to give them credit.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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