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NL DIVISION SERIES: PIRATES v CARDINALSOctober 7, 2013Mike MathenyPITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: Game Four Cardinals – 2 Q. Can you even begin to describe how good your starting pitcher was today? MIKE MATHENY: Not very well. I don't know what else‑‑ we did a lot of gushing about him before we even got him out there today, and I think everybody sees why. I don't know if you can put a kid in a tougher spot. He came out and just made pitches all day long. He just got‑‑ he's just got a knack of getting up there and very business‑like getting the job done. I'm not going to go on too long, because I would like to see him throw a couple more times this year. Q. Mike, I know you touched on it a bit before this game, but now that you are going back to St. Louis, can you just describe your confidence in Adam and having him another chance to throw? MIKE MATHENY: We're always excited to see Adam Wainwright on the mound. He's the ace of our staff. These guys, they get a lot of energy every time he has the mound. So we'll have an excited crowd, I hope, back in St. Louis to greet us, and hopefully the guys just keep playing just gutsy baseball. Q. Is it fair to say with Wacha, more astounding than his talent is the poise. 40,000 people screaming at him, no problem? MIKE MATHENY: I would say that's very accurate. You have to have stuff to go along with it. But when you have that combination of poise and presence and then you mix in the ability to take the distractions‑‑ we talked about it before the game, his last start and what it meant to us and what it meant to him to have that kind of pressure down the stretch. And once again you put him in the situation like it was today. This place was loud. My ears are still ringing. The kid stayed the course. He trusted himself. He trusted his catcher and the game plan. And then it comes down to execution. And it was impressive to watch how he executed today. Q. Mike, I doubt you want to get too philosophical. Can you describe some of the traits of your team that allowed your guys to have some success recently in elimination games? MIKE MATHENY: I look at it as what we have seen all season long. And I said this before, I think you take high talent and high character people that are motivated and support each other, and they don't give up. That's a tough combination. And they've bought into playing‑‑ the idea of playing this game in a way that they got no regrets about. And it's just an honor to watch them do the thing day in and day out. And it's just buying into a culture, it's buying into an expectation of playing this game the right way all the time. Q. You went out to speak to Rosenthal. What was your message there? MIKE MATHENY: I don't normally give all the details, but it was‑‑ it was basically just an opportunity to breathe. Made a couple of light comments, and then reinforced to him the fact that he's got a whole group of guys behind him that have all the faith in the world in him, and just trust himself, trust the team behind him, and he's going to get us through it. And he did. He did a great job. Look it, we also leave out Martinez, another kid in there comes in in a big situation and does a terrific job. You look at the three young players we threw out there in situations that they weren't real accustomed to and how they produced. It's pretty impressive day for them. Q. Mike, how important was Yadi's throw there after the home run when they tried to steal with Harrison in the eighth? MIKE MATHENY: Yeah, it's‑‑ something we've seen him do on a consistent basis. It takes the air out of the opposition, out of the stadium. It did get quiet real fast. He's so good at controlling the running game. One of the things he does better than most that I've seen is he takes so much pride in how he calls the game. He's not calling the game to eliminate the running game. He's calling the game to make pitches. He knows he has a base stealer on there. His priority is his pitcher. And ends upcoming up with a big throw to get us out of the spot. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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