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NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS v BRAVESOctober 4, 2013Don MattinglyATLANTA, GEORGIA: Game Two Q. What has Uribe meant to your team over the course of the season? DON MATTINGLY: Well, a lot of different things. Obviously at third base he's been unbelievable. The plays he's made over there has kind of just stopped that‑‑ anything over there at third base. He's been great, a guy in our clubhouse that's been tremendous over the last couple of years. I think showed a lot of character last year when Luis came in and did really well, but Juan kind of stayed the course, was a good teammate to him, gained tons of respect from the clubhouse. And he swung the bat this year. He's been great. Offensively he's been a force. I think he was .290 or something against righties, a little different against the lefties. He's a guy that's given us a lot of key hits. He's walked a little bit this year and he's kind of solidified third base for us. Q. A.J. was just in here a minute ago and talked about how difficult it is to flip the switch, and you guys obviously weren't playing great at the end. Were you concerned about that as the regular season wound down, and seeing last night, did that reassure you at all? DON MATTINGLY: Well, I think you're always concerned that momentum has gotten turned, your guys have kind of‑‑ so you are concerned, and there's really a delicate balance, I think, for myself and the coaching staff of human nature tells me that these games, they know these games. Part of those games didn't mean anything, and you can tell them home‑field advantage and all that stuff, and you're pushing it, so how far do you push. We had some guys that were banged up. Do you take care of them? Do you keep pushing through it? You're always concerned about letting momentum get away. But I think in the playoffs, and I've only played one year but I've been a number of years now as a coach, but momentum is daily. Today's momentum is going to be based on this game. Right now we have a little momentum going into the game. We've won a game on the road. We've got our guys going. If we can put pressure on them today, hopefully we can kind of keep the momentum in our dugout. But that changes all the time. It's part of that other one. Q. They go from a right‑handed starter to a left‑handed starter today which didn't change the lineup at all. Why no changes? DON MATTINGLY: Well, I don't know where really the changes‑‑ what's happened is you don't have Matt and you don't have Andre, so I don't really have anyone that's truly played a lot of center field at the Major League level. That keeps me at Schu. Carl, we've pretty much decided this is our guy at the top, and we want to be able to go with him. So there's really nowhere to go for us. I don't know where I would really change. Q. Puig, you've been set with him at fifth there for a while? DON MATTINGLY: Well, I am with what's happened with us. It depends if I can get Andre back or not. That could change him around a little bit. He gives me better balance throughout the course of the‑‑ throughout the length of our lineup. He can be a force. He's a guy that every time he walks up could hit a homer. Makes you think a little bit behind Adrian, how you're going to pitch Adrian. So just trying to put the lineup together the best way possible, keep it balanced where you don't get to the back and feel like you just kind of don't like guys everywhere, where they're at. Q. With a chance to digest how well things went for you last night, are you kind of pinching yourself with Greinke going today and taking home‑field advantage away from Atlanta? DON MATTINGLY: Well, obviously, again, the playoffs, kind of one‑day momentum. You feel good about we probably couldn't have scripted it too much better than we scripted it yesterday. Kershaw was able to go seven, get to the back end of our bullpen. We were able to put pressure on them, get a lead early. I think we marked four times in nine innings‑‑ I think we scored in four different innings, so we kind of kept pressure constantly. So everything kind of went well for us. And then to have Zack starting today, obviously we have the same chances. He can throw some zeros early, we can get on the board early, put some pressure on them. Q. How's Ethier progressing? DON MATTINGLY: We think good. We liked his at‑bat last night. Yesterday I guess on the bases he ran a little bit, made a couple of turns. He's at the point where I know I'm willing to use him station to station. If it's a situation I don't have to try to‑‑ he didn't have to try to score from first base or score from second, I'm in more of a scenario that I'm willing to let him go. He gets to second, he's fine. If it's a ball he can get to second and take his time and still get to third, that's fine, too. I don't know what scenario that would be, but I know we're willing to do that so we don't have to pinch run for him automatically. Q. So if he gets a hit, he could stay in the game? DON MATTINGLY: He could possibly stay in the game if it's the right situation. Q. How did Clayton feel today? DON MATTINGLY: Clayton came out good. He's always‑‑ kind of that day after he's blowing up the weight room, so he's kind of in there doing his day‑after workout. He's going to throw a pen or something tomorrow he's talking about, so he's moving on. Q. Do you think Kenley Jansen has gotten the credit he deserves for the season he's had? And how much did he turn around the bullpen by himself just when you made that move? DON MATTINGLY: Well, he kind of ended up solidifying it, which I don't know if always numbers‑wise you can quantify what he was able to do. I think it's a confidence your team has when you get a lead late. If you get that lead and you're going into the ninth, you feel like you're going to win. I know these guys have it in Atlanta, and I think Kenley gave us that. One‑run lead, you feel like he's going to hold that. So that's given us I think as a team a lot of confidence. I don't know if he gets the credit maybe because he hasn't been the closer all year. And we're kind of west coast. You don't get the same amount of exposure, it doesn't seem like, kind of nationally because the games are on at different times and things. But it won't take long that he's going to get his due. I'm sure the people do within baseball, because they love the numbers, and his are pretty good. Q. It looked like on that early ground out Hanley wasn't moving too well and later in the game makes a great play at shortstop and makes the double. What did you see from him in terms of how he came through that game? DON MATTINGLY: I think he was fine. I think we're going to be dealing with this a little bit all the time. I don't think we're ever going to go, Hey, Hanley feels great, we're not worried about him. Every day he'll be getting loosened up and heated up. And hopefully through the course of the game he stays solid. Like the ground out I think you're talking about, he knows he's out. And we've kind of made sure that he's not going to try to‑‑ you always like your guys to be running full speed all the time. But really with him, you want to use some common sense and say, don't try to kill yourself. And then you see the ball hit in the hole, you see him run a lot better. I think it's there if he wants it. I think it's there, if he wanted to steal a bag, he would. I think as of right now he's still‑‑ he's fine. Q. Any concern anybody would try to do something in retaliation for the Puig hit last night? DON MATTINGLY: No, I don't think it was on purpose. I don't think anybody on the bench felt like it was on purpose. It didn't seem like the right time or anything else. I don't think so. I mean, we're here to win a game. We can't afford to have guys thrown out of games. Obviously if it got‑‑ if it was something we felt like was really intentional, then we're going to protect our guys. I think we've already shown we will protect our own. That's for sure. But I don't think anybody felt like that was‑‑ it may have been, but I don't think we felt like it was. Q. Fast forwarding to Game 3 with Ryu on the mound, even though there's been a language barrier a bit, why is it that you think he's seemingly fit in so well? And how do you think he'll handle the stage of Game 3? DON MATTINGLY: I think he'll be fine. He's a funny guy. He's like the odd couple, him and Uribe get along so well. It doesn't make any sense to me. But he is an easy going guy that has fun. He's always smiling, and I just think he's fit in well. He's come over‑‑ you know, nothing seems to bother him. He's not going to speed up for anybody. I just think he's going to handle it. He seems so like relaxed coming over, and I think he's pitched a lot of games in his mind that have been big games. Some of the scouts that we talked to seemed to think that all the WBC games he's pitched and things like that, that's when his best outings have came against the best teams. So we feel like he'll step up. Q. You've had Hanley Ramirez for over a year now. Has he been what you expected? Did you know what he'd be playing as a player, as a guy in the clubhouse? DON MATTINGLY: As a player, he's been what we expected. I felt like I had a really good read on how good he was watching him playing in Miami and seeing him move on TV. This guy is a talented guy that can really hit, and hit good pitching. So that part has been kind of what you trade for. And with the expectations of anything else, kind of some of the stuff that we had heard about, we really wanted to clean the slate for him when he came over and just basically say we start from right here. I don't know what's went on in Miami or what's went on in the past, but it's got nothing to do with this going forward. And we just tried to clean the slate for him, ask him to come, be ready to play. I want him to have fun when he plays and just play hard, have fun. He's been great. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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