AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES v ATHLETICS

October 4, 2000

Joe Torre

JOE TORRE: A little restless last night. I think just a matter of waking up and having a thought. Earlier in the year when we did not have Knoblauch and trying to figure out what to do at the top of the lineup, I remember Chris Chambliss and Zimmer and I were talking, and I said I need to find -- if I need lead Jeter off, I need a number two hitter and Zimmer suggested, "what about the catcher?" We tried it, Jorge he had a couple of good days. We've done it from time to time. We haven't done it since Knoblauch came back but that's where it came from last night.

JOE TORRE: We talked about it this morning at breakfast, and he reached in his pocket and says take a look at that and basically the same type lineup with Jorge, he was hitting second.

JOE TORRE: Andy Pettitte, I was introduced to him in 1996 in that game he pitched, Game 5 -- first off, before that against Baltimore when we were losing our lead and he made big plays, pitched a big game. Game 5 in Atlanta put us ahead three games to two, 1-0, and that never left me. Even during the year last year when he was struggling so badly, and there was talk about his being traded. And then, of course, this year, he went toe-to-toe with Pedro twice and won both times in Boston. You know, he's tough. He's tough. He doesn't get a lot of attention, because, you know you have high-profile people on the club like Cone and Roger and El Duque, but he can pitch a big game and I don't think he's pitched one bigger than tonight.

JOE TORRE: I don't know. I'm going to think about it tomorrow and see what happens. You know, whatever it is, you know, it will be. But I don't know what I'm going to do right now, to be honest with you.

JOE TORRE: Well, we made the decision to go with three starters. And Roger, we felt, earned the right to pitch game one and Andy, of course, being left-handed and having the year he had, got the second game. And I think tonight, if we have to come back here to play Game 5, obviously, coming in to the same ballpark, you'd like to think that, you know, the feeling would be positive for him. So I'm very confident that if we do have to come back for a Game 5, I feel good about his being our pitcher.

JOE TORRE: He certainly puts himself -- he focuses and gets himself in this trance, I guess you can say, and he does a lot of talking to himself. You can watch him. He has meetings with himself on the mound quite often. He'll be talking to himself walking off the mound, and he'll go up the runway -- a little tougher to do in this ballpark, and he talks himself into positive things. But you're right. He walks in, he's completely oblivious to everything that is going on around him. He may say something to Jorge once in awhile, but most of the time he's locked in and he was tonight.

JOE TORRE: Pretty much with all the starting pitchers, you really don't pay attention to them. If we're at home, every single one of them will go up to the clubhouse and come down with one or two outs. As I say, here, it is tougher to do because it is such a long walk so he just sat at the end of the dugout. And you don't say anything to him. If he wants to say something to somebody, obviously, you return it. But for the most part, starting pitchers are a different breed and you pretty much let them do what they want to do.

JOE TORRE: Well, they are young kids, but with a lot of ability and a lot of confidence. We just need to play our game. A clean game, be able to match them inning by inning, and hopefully we can break through. Tonight's game was typical of what we've done over the years and even last night's game. We didn't score a lot of runs and didn't give up a lot, but it was obviously enough for them. We just need to go out, and a game like tonight has got to help us confidence-wise, and hopefully we can get a lead for El Duque on Friday and have it hold up.

JOE TORRE: I didn't laugh, I said, "Oh my God," when I saw him fall. I pretty much knew what happened as soon as it happened. He got his foot tangled up with a shoe lace or tripped over his heel or whatever the heck it was. You don't laugh when the tying run comes to the plate. And, of course, Andy pitched so well that I didn't hesitate to take him out. We didn't really laugh at Luis until we got out at inning and then we asked him all kinds of interesting questions.

JOE TORRE: There's no question that everything crosses your mind. When you make a commitment, we just decided, let's just stay with him. He only had two at-bats. And obviously up there the time before, he swung at those three dirt balls and he had a plan that didn't work. He changed his plan the next time up and got a big base hit for us.