MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v BRAVES

October 27, 1999

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: Well, I think you have to do whatever it takes to win a ball game at this point, and, you know, if our starters are able to throw an inning, we'll use them in order to win a ball game. You bet.

BOBBY COX: It's never been done before, I guess, and probably going to happen some time, maybe that's one thing we could look forward to, to doing something that's never been done. And maybe we'll be the team. That's, you know, one thing we can at least talk about.

BOBBY COX: When you're leading in the eighth inning, you like to wrap them up. You know, Maddux' game, I can remember how the inning started with Brosius getting a ground ball base hit, then we kicked a bunt play and O'Neill got a chopper, you know, by the first base side. You know, they earned that. They earned the one last night. Sure, you hate to lose when you're leading, but you know it's going to happen in these types of games with the hitting, I think, that the Yankees have. They're very capable of coming back any time against anybody. Most of the time we'll shut them down, but it does happen.

BOBBY COX: We got beat on a ball that barely went 315 feet really. That was hard to take. The home run that Curtis hit to leftfield was stunning. You accept those. But little popups, the ball was jumping out in that area last night, rightfield. You hate to get beat on what we think is an easy out, but it's Yankee Stadium and it's a home run. So you can't cry about that. But we thought that was an out, and the ball came close, I think it hit Brian on this side of his fingers, I guess they were saying, and probably didn't even feel it much because he was trying to get up on the wall. So it was a close play. But stealing third, we were going to steal third all night long if we had a chance with Pettitte. You can't steal second but you can third. I think I thought Bret would make it easy, really easy.

BOBBY COX: Well, we'll try anything we can to win. Smoltz is going to start the game, and we'll go from there. I don't know if everybody's going to be available, but most everybody will be.

BOBBY COX: Well, we're not going to talk about losing. But no team ever wants to get swept. We're going to do everything we can to win, you know, win one game at a whack here, and I don't know, you know, that's not for me to say. I, you know, these things can swing one way or the other, and, you know, I feel like we ought to be 2-1 instead of 0-3 right now personally. But that's the way it is. I don't know about that, and I really don't think about that, so, you know, it's not really significant to me.

BOBBY COX: He was really strong. He was throwing great. He said he was fine. He's ready to go back. I had Leo go over and talk to him to make sure. Leo said he's fine and he's throwing great. We all thought he was throwing great including Tommy. He had plenty left. He had a lot of room. He could have pitched ten innings, probably. Again, he got a first-pitch strike over to Girardi who takes one once in a while, other times he is a first-ball hitter. I think he was trying to get a strike on him. Then the popup to right. But Tommy was strong. There's no second-guessing there in my mind, from Leo and I or Tommy; he had plenty to go. If those guys are still strong, they're in, period. They're too good to take out. He could get double plays, ground balls all night long. And, you know, he was on last night. I thought he was on very good.

BOBBY COX: We're taking them just one game at a time. That's the only way we can do it. We can't talk our way through it or anything else. We have to win tonight to be able to play tomorrow. You can't win four all in one night and we're not going to try to do that. We're going to do our best tonight and take it from there.

BOBBY COX: We're fine right now. I mean once you get over the frustration of losing a game like that last night, once you get to the ballpark, everybody's fine again. Nobody's down. So, you know, we're a very professional team, we come to win every night. And nobody's going to be hanging their heads. At least I better not see them. My head is up, and theirs will be, too. It's tough. When you go back to the hotel. There's a lot of time to think about that game because we don't leave right away to go back to the hotel. We're here for an hour, two hours, an hour in there and on the bus with nobody talking, it's not a lot of fun.

BOBBY COX: We've always been able to come back to some extent. A lot of the playoffs, through the years, we've been down a little bit and came right back. Our pitching allows us to do that. We can bounce as good as anybody else, and, again, we've played two real good ball games out of the three and felt, you know, we should be leading this thing, but we're not. We haven't played quite good enough to do that.

BOBBY COX: It's easier to score on a fly ball with one out than if he hits a --

BOBBY COX: Sure. That was part of our strategy. We were going to steal it every time we got on. I mean you can't play these games, you know, when you think you can do something, you got to have the courage to go ahead and do it. It was the right thing to do. I gave him the opportunity to do it, and, you know, he was out.

BOBBY COX: Honestly I think all four of our starters are suited for it. John has pitched so many big ball games, he's always come up with a big game. He's able to turn it up a notch, has been able to. His gun readings -- I don't know about tonight, he's throwing from a different angle tonight than he used to, too. His readings have always gone higher. His stuff, you know, got a notch better. And he's a tremendous competitor, and he'll be giving them everything he can. But he's prepared, believe me.

BOBBY COX: I'm going to say this for the last time. I don't really think about that. Baseball, to me, this job is a year-to-year proposition, and that's it. We're paid to win and, you know, if we had the best record after the ten years, that's fine. If we don't, that's fine. I'm looking at what happened the year before or the past year, and that's as far as I ever get. So something to be proud of, I guess, once you retire to look back and somebody tagged your team with that phrase of being the Team of the Decade. You know, that would be nice. But it's honestly something I don't think about. But I think it's good, you know, for the press to talk about it here at the series and all that. Makes a lot of sense.

BOBBY COX: Well, I didn't see the Texas one, but I saw the Boston game and, you know, we saw him once this season. And his stuff is always pretty darn good to me. The first time we saw him he was a little bit off target with his control, is all I saw the difference. And, you know, Roger if he's 80 percent as good as he used to be, he's still going to win 18, 19 games. There's only a handful of guys that can do that. So he's still a great pitcher, outstanding pitcher, and I know he's done what teams have done, you know, the more you win, the more they expect, the fans. And they expect us in Atlanta to hardly ever lose a ball game. And when you're in the class of a Roger Clemens, what he's done in the past, when he does slip just a little bit and give up runs, people are... That's the way it is. That's the nature of the game. I think Roger's still a real good pitcher.

BOBBY COX: Our bullpen has been fine all season long. Remlinger last night gave up the home run. He's been as important to our club as John Rocker for the season. He is very much involved in the mix of it, and, you know, we got Mulholland out there, a young guy McGlinchy, Springer's been throwing good. We're fine, we can do the job out there. I feel very good with it. John can probably throw one inning tonight.

BOBBY COX: I talked to Jimy during the season about the Yankees when we played interleague. We shared some ideas from the teams that he plays from the National League with interleague. I talked to Jimy, you know, after their series but not about the Yankees. I don't think he's in the mood to talk about it.