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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RED SOX v YANKEES


October 14, 2003


Grady Little


BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Game Five

Q. You got a home run out there again tonight but home runs by themselves are not doing the job. Can you talk about that aspect. You set a bunch of batting records this season, guys doing a lot of different things to advance the runners, but you're looking for other things offensively.

GRADY LITTLE: You're exactly right, and that's certainly been the case, not just in this series but throughout the playoffs for us. The majority of our runs are coming via the home run, and that's a little uncharacteristic of the way we went about scoring runs all season long, and that's going to be the key to our success, we have to start bunching together some hits. That's what it's all about. But at times, when a hitter is hitting, getting hits it comes easy, but at other times you've got to work really hard for them and right now we're working really hard for them.

Q. Will you have to do something with the batting order at all the next game with Nomar or will you just stick with what you're doing?

GRADY LITTLE: We'll think about that on the flight tonight, but I don't foresee any big changes in our batting lineup.

Q. You have a couple of guys slumping and Nomar is one of them; is it something you are waiting out; is there anything that can be done in a day? It's obviously gone on now for a bit.

GRADY LITTLE: These guys are professional hitters, and the clock is ticking on us right now. We'll just wait it out another day and see if they can't get it going because we're going to need everybody to contribute for us to get this done and this isn't something we've never been through before. We were through this about a week ago.

Q. What did you see out of Wells tonight that made him so effective against you guys?

GRADY LITTLE: Boomer showed me nothing that surprised me out there tonight. He gives you a competitive outing the majority of the time out there. He has the ability make pitches when he does get into jams here and there. That one inning we had the bases loaded, he made pitches and he was successful.

Q. What do you take out of getting a run out of Rivera in the eighth and talk about his performance?

GRADY LITTLE: We have a lot of respect for that guy. The main thing we think about Mariano when he comes -- when he's involved with the club we're playing against is we want to try to keep him from being a factor in that ballgame and tonight we weren't able to do that.

Q. Just on the home-field advantage, I know it's a certain cliche, particularly in the post-season but you took a game down there in New York and they grabbed two from the Sox tonight; is that weighing on your team at all, knowing that you're going down into the Stadium and have to win two?

GRADY LITTLE: Well, when you have to win two against a ballclub like that, it doesn't really matter where you're playing. We know we've got our work cut out for us and we'll go do the best we can. I tell you what, these guys have been enjoyable to watch all season long. We've had our back to the wall in the last series and we've got it here again. You've got to play the game. We'll see what happens.

Q. Tomorrow with Burkett going, is everybody else in the bullpen kind of on deck to step in at any point or could we even see Pedro tomorrow?

GRADY LITTLE: We will be fully loaded in the bullpen tomorrow but don't expect to see Pedro. We are in a position right now, we've got to win two games and Pedro will get one of those but it won't be any time tomorrow. It will be the following day.

End of FastScripts...

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