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NL WILD CARD GAME: CARDINALS v BRAVESOctober 4, 2012Mike MathenyATLANTA, GEORGIA: Workout Day Q. On a serious note, given the Braves record, and they've won more games than you, and Medlen and the braves are on this 20‑game winning streak together, do you feel that makes you the underdog going in? If so, are you comfortable with that role? MIKE MATHENY: I don't really put much stock in underdogs or favorites. You go play the game. That is the simplest way to go about it, and it is the truth. You take everything for what it's worth. Numbers are what numbers are. You can't ignore the data. But when it all comes down to it, it comes down to playing through the game. Our guys are prepared to do that. They've done it before. They've been the underdogs before. I'd say it's probably as extreme as anybody has ever been, last year. We saw what happened there. So if that is the sentiment right now, I'd say that that may play into our hand. But I don't think that's really the pulse of our clubhouse. Q. Mike, can you take us through the roster, and the break down of the roster, and the make‑up of your bullpen? MIKE MATHENY: The break down will be ten pitchers, and the pitchers you won't see are going to be our starters. Plus Lance Lynn will be active. You won't see Victor Marte either. Pretty much you can put together the rest of the position players with Bryan Anderson and Ryan Jackson being in on that mix. Q. You're going to put Chambers in? MIKE MATHENY: Yeah, so it's a 15‑10. Q. Do you want to elaborate? MIKE MATHENY: I think they kind of made themselves. This is kind of unprecedented how to go about this one‑game series. But we have the ability to add some depth to our bench in case we do need to put some players in late. As far as the pitching goes, our bullpen has been pretty established. To be able to add another arm like a Lynn out of the starting rotation really makes a lot of sense, without putting any of the other guys on shorter rest in situations that we probably wouldn't use them in anyhow. So it really kind of defined itself. Q. Will you keep Miller throwing some in case you want him to perform in a later round, if you get to a later round? MIKE MATHENY: You guys like what you saw yesterday, huh? Q. Little bit. MIKE MATHENY: He will keep throwing. But, yeah, Shelby won't be active this round, but definitely keep throwing. It's just good for him and his development. I said it before. Every day he has here, and a lot of these young players, every day's going to benefit them in the long run. Q. Could you discuss to what degree you all considered keeping Garcia potentially as a reliever for this game given the composition of their roster? MIKE MATHENY: We did consider it. They do have a very left‑handed, strong lineup. It was a conversation we had. It didn't last long. Once again, we believe in the back half of our bullpen. When we get to the 7th inning, we've had some very good success letting these guys face left‑handed and right‑handed hitters, so it didn't really matter. So I'm in a position to come into a relief role. It just didn't seem to make a lot of sense to us at this time. I believe that Lance Lynn being able to come in there, as well as Joe Kelly, and Trevor Rosenthal, guys that can go long, long‑term, but also come in on short assignments are much more effective and something they're all more used to than what I'm able to be. Q. I know Lohse was 16‑3. Were there other factors besides the one loss record that made him the best choice of the several good ones you had for this game? MIKE MATHENY: Yeah, it's nice to have those options and for all of our starters to be throwing as well as they have right down to the end of the season. But it's just Kyle's consistency. Every time he got on the mound, we knew he had a chance. He made pitches from opening day in Miami, right up to his last start. It was impressive to watch. I think that he was as good a pitch maker as anybody in the game through the whole length of the season. Q. Are you ready to announce your starting lineup for tomorrow? MIKE MATHENY: Yeah, not a big shocker. Starting lineup will look a lot like it has right down the wire as we finished up the season. Jay, Beltran, Holliday, Craig, Molina, Freese, Descalso, Kozma. Q. Was Berkman any consideration at all being on tomorrow's club? MIKE MATHENY: First of all, I didn't get a chance to really thank the fans for what they did, and the level at which they did it when Lance went up for his at‑bat yesterday. That was very impressive. But leading up to that, I think we all have come to that realization, and he's still working and you never know and you don't say or rule anybody out. But he's feeling a lot of restrictions the further he tries to push it. So it's going to be tough for him to get it to the point where he feel that's he could go up there and give a competitive at‑bat. We're not ruling anything out. Just like we talked about some of the young pitchers. We're going to keep Lance working, and we'll see what we have when we get there. But right now, he's not ready. Q. Saw Jake Westbrook out there earlier throwing today. What is his status? Is he still a guy that if you guys go deep into October, he might fit in the bullpen later on? MIKE MATHENY: Same situation. We keep him moving forward. He's going to continue to go through rehab if he needs to, and see how he responds. Once again, it will be a nice bonus surprise to have if things continue to move well. But he's feeling good, but right now he's still not ready. Q. Ask you your thoughts on the new format, especially the unique challenges that it has? Not being able to have your number one starter, if it was a regular divisional round, have them go twice? Your point of view and your thoughts to give you a chance to get in? MIKE MATHENY: The new format, we're ecstatic. We'd be home right now and we'd be spectators. So we're exceptionally happy about the format. The fact that we will have to use up a pitcher it makes sense to me. I believe the team that wins the division ought to have an advantage. I think it's been well done. I applaud the league for the excitement and the buzz that went through baseball. We've seen last year, Game 162, one of the most exciting ever, and now this year there are so many teams and fan bases engaged to the last day, the last couple of days certainly, and that's what we're doing here. This is a fan‑driven business. I think the excitement level proves that it's been a good idea. Q. Does this put you in a tough spot? MIKE MATHENY: Well, we consider ourselves pretty fortunate in the fact that we've had some starters throwing very well. The question came earlier, which guy to use? That's a nice problem to have. We have some guys with some deep, post‑season experience that I believe is invaluable, as well as guys just throwing the ball well. It would alter if we didn't have a one‑game, but that's something we can't even think about. Because if it weren't for this format, we wouldn't be playing. With that being said, we're going to be prepared if we get past tomorrow. Q. Along the same lines, you have plenty of postseason experience catching, and you know what it's like, though this is different. It's kind of a Game 7, but it's not an exact match because, for example, the roster composition is different. Do you manage differently in a situation like this in that a much shorter leash, potentially with the pitcher more aggressive? Does this require, ultra aggressive type of managing? MIKE MATHENY: Well, from my extended experience, we know the necessity to make tomorrow like a Game 7 but there is also still a balance of let's play the game. Let's play another game. It's worked for us through the season. It's worked for us down the stretch here in September just to continue to play the game and not try to reinvent the wheel. But with that being said we all know when you have one game to try to turn it into an extended October, you do things differently. So been anticipating it, but I also want these guys to know we just go out and play the game we've been playing. Q. Did you feel the need to talk to some of the other starters that you didn't choose for this? I'm sure they were fine with you choosing Kyle, but some of the other guys that would have been well‑qualified to get the start. MIKE MATHENY: Whether these guys like it or not, I talk to them every day. We have conversations about what's going on. I don't like surprises, and I don't imagine they do either. So we've just been very conversational. But a lot of this stuff has kind of played into itself. As you go into the second to the last day of the season with everything on the line, we're running our starters out there and playing all of those games like it's a Game 7. So I think they started seeing how things were going to lineup as far as their rest days would go. They all understand. Q. How much weight do you put on the regular season games you guys played against this team? Obviously, your bullpen's a little different now than then. But what did you see from the Braves then that concerns you now or is it a totally different situation from your standpoint? MIKE MATHENY: I saw a very good team. I think we saw an offense that came into St. Louis early in the season and put together the kind of series that we had been putting on everybody else. Then we came here, and they played well again. So there is no secret. But when you get to postseason, there are no slouches. We have the utmost respect for Freddy and this club. But we also have a lot of respect for ourselves and a lot of belief and faith and trust that we can do what we need to do to make things happen. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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