NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 9, 2001

Randy Johnson

RANDY JOHNSON: I don't think they looked very deep into the numbers, the numbers of wins and losses. I know what I am. I am 2-6. You look at the games that I've pitched, the two games I pitched in Houston, the game I pitched in Baltimore. Those are the games that you get wins or maybe a no decision, but in a post-season game, it's very easy to get a loss. I pitched two poorly pitched games in post-season, one for the Diamondbacks and one for Seattle. But I'm not afraid to say all the other post-season games I've pitched, I feel I've pitched pretty well.

RANDY JOHNSON: I believe so. It's never been a matter of how many innings I throw, I tend to throw a lot of pitches per inning and they tend to add up at the end of the year. So that's what really takes it's toll. But for whatever reason at All-Star break this year, I still had more pitches this year than years prior. I don't know what the total number was at the end of this year, whether I had more this year or years past. But I do feel better, so I've got that going for me.

St. Louis figure into your game plan?

RANDY JOHNSON: That was early in April. Because I had -- that may have been my second start of the year. I had 33 more starts after that, and there's your one bad game. But if you pitch a bad game like that in post-season, it gets magnified. But if you pitch 33 more games after that, people forget about it unless you face that team again in post-season, then it's brought up. This has been a fun year. It's been a fun year for a lot of different reasons. It's fun watching a lot of the people come up a lot of the young kids come up from AAA and contribute. It was fun because this was a main goal for everybody to come out of spring training and have post-season on our minds. Obviously, we didn't play well at times, but I don't think there are very many teams post-season at this time that played all year long, except for Seattle, and they're losing right now. So you hope that you don't stay in a losing slump for very long. Because we have a veteran team, I think we were able to find our way out of a losing slump that was maybe two or three games, opposed if it was a younger team, it could have been five or six games and I think that helped.

RANDY JOHNSON: It goes without being said, I think, that all the teams that are playing right now, you want to think that everybody's mind was set to go to the World Series. Coming out of the spring training, that was the Diamondbacks main objective, and obviously during the course of 162 games, a lot of nice things happen to individuals during the course of a season. Barry, Gonzo, Sammy Sosa, myself with the strikeouts, but my main objective is to get to post-season and like the rest of my teammates, so the personal stuff took a back seat. I still feel like I had a good year, if I was to retire this season, I may say it may have been the best year of my career, in certain categories. But do I feel I had my best year to date? No.

RANDY JOHNSON: The fun that I'm talking about is I felt like I wasn't the person that had to go out there every fifth day and as much as I've relished that over my career, you know, the last seven years of my career haven't probably been as much fun as they should be with the individual accomplishments, with going to post-season. Being in a situation now I've got someone that takes some of that responsibility off of me and will be pitching tonight, and then I'll be pitching tomorrow, but the responsibility was evenly divided. And when I was in Seattle, there was a great deal of responsibility to be the go-to pitcher. I was that pitcher when I was there, when we got to post-season, they always slotted me as the number one guy. When I went to Houston, there was a lot of buildup going there. I felt like I pitched pretty good. Unfortunately, I got two losses there. In '99, when I first came over here, they felt like they had their number one pitcher and I was the number one -- I started game number one, and now that we have Curt here, it's -- I still have a great deal of responsibility on the days I go out, but I feel like the responsibility of carrying the team in post-season has been evenly divided now and I think for that reason, and even during the course of the season, I was having a little more fun, if you want to word it that way, because the responsibility was on me solely every fifth day.

RANDY JOHNSON: Only if it's raining. I'm not sure if it will be open or closed, but I don't anticipate any problems.

RANDY JOHNSON: I will still have to go pitch, as well Miguel Batista, but hopefully we'll be one game up and -- to me, it's still going to having out there and be prepared. I'm viewing it -- I mean it's Game 1 for me. A lot is predicated off the first game, but I'm excited about being in this position and the team is. And I'm excited about pitching tomorrow.

RANDY JOHNSON: I think late in the year, if you can get a day or so of extra rest, it's good. My last start was roughly about seven days ago. There was plans of pitching on Saturday. It wasn't necessary. There were plans of possibly pitching one or two innings on Sunday. We decided against that, and I threw a good bullpen yesterday and took today off, which I normally do throughout the year. So I feel that I'm prepared to go out and pitch tomorrow. The only thing that I may be fighting is maybe feeling too good, and that's happened to me throughout the year, where I've felt too good and I've tried to rush the ball to home plate because you feel so good.

RANDY JOHNSON: I faced them, like I said, two times earlier in the year and faced a lot of other good teams between then and now. I obviously want to stay away from putting people on base and allowing them to have the beginning. They have got a lot of power in the middle of their lineup. And with Placido Polanco and Vina at the top of their order. You want to keep them off base and not give them any extra opportunities to score runs. Vina walks. And so getting ahead of hitters will be something that will be important, just to minimize the beginnings.