MLB WORLD SERIES: PADRES v YANKEES

October 18, 1998

Bruce Bochy

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, I think Dave has made a huge impact on this ballclub. I think he has helped pitchers. His intensity, his knowledge to this ballclub, and as far as Dave and I how we work together, I lean on Dave. He is the pitching coach and there are times when I talk with him, especially about changes before the game we talk about what the game plan is. And he keeps me informed on how the pitchers are, how they are doing and that is his job as a pitching coach. I have all the confidence in the world in Dave and when he tells me something, a lot of times I will go with it.

BRUCE BOCHY: The doctor was looking at him just right before I came here, so, I know he has a temperature and he did before the game yesterday. No, I was not aware of it, but I knew something was up because just looking at Kevin, he didn't look well. You could tell he wasn't his normal self. So about the 6th inning I caught wind of it, that is why we were keeping close on it. Plus he took that ball on the shin. We said if he got in trouble in the 6th, we would go get him. He had a good 6th inning. I was talking to him, he said he was okay to start the 7th. I said, hey, if he gets in any trouble, I am going to go get him because he just was not feeling well. Plus he had a huge knot there on his shin where the ball hit him. But he gave us all he has and he always does and he had gone far enough there. But I think he is going to be fine. Hopefully he will get over this in the next day or so with antibiotics.

BRUCE BOCHY: Dave is not pitching until we get to San Diego, so to be honest, we haven't talked a lot about David. Right now we have to concentrate on Hernandez. Those -- as far as how he is different, I think he is a guy that uses all his pitches. He always has. But we just haven't talked a lot about him. Right now it is not time to. After we get through tonight's game, sure we will talk about Dave Cone and how we want to approach him.

BRUCE BOCHY: I think last night was indicative of how I feel about my bullpen. I have a lot of confidence in them. That is why we stuck with what got us here. Donne Wall, he was the guy that we brought in in that kind of situation. That is what we wanted to do for this series. Dan Miceli normally pitches the 8th inning and Myers is there to help him out depending on who is coming up. So I still have confidence in these guys. They have done a good job. They are a big reason why we are in this situation and I don't want them to get down. Sure things didn't work out last night, but you have to put tough times behind you. This club does a great job of it. Donne Wall needs to do that. I still have confidence in this pen. As far as Dan Miceli, he did have a little arm fatigue there in the Atlanta series, so instead of breaking him out last night in that situation, Donne, you know, had felt good all along, so, we went with Donne there. But Dan Miceli is fine to go. Again, I have all the confidence in the world in him.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, I think where Sterling really turned it around was out of spring training. He did not make our rotation and we put him in the bullpen. Just seems like it woke him up a little bit, maybe, but more so than that, it just got him more aggressive, really I think all season he did a good job for us and he pitched some of our finest games and he has carried that into postseason and he just has shown, I think tremendous mental toughness out there going against the kind of pitchers and clubs that he has pitched against.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, I mean on the ballclub as far as on the field it is obvious he plays a huge role. We feel like we have a guy that is going to go down as one of the greatest hitters of all time. He has a very calming influence in that clubhouse, a positive influence, and does a great job working with the other guys in helping them out. It is incredible how much he gets out in our community in San Diego. I have said this before, the best thing I could say about Tony Gwynn is that he has not changed since I have known him since 1983. He is the same guy. He still gets out -- he signs autographs all day. He gets out in the community and helps out. That is why his nickname is Mr. San Diego because of what the people and the fans think about him there.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, any trade that is made, Kevin Towers, he will confer with me and ask my opinion and but as far as that trade that is up to Kevin Towers. That is his decision and you know at that time we had Ricky Henderson. And the trade came about because we were trying to free up the situation that we had there because of what we think about Greg Vaughn, we wanted him to get his three or four at-bats and sometimes the trade that is never made is the best one. That is how we feel about this. We are lucky that that trade did not happen. It was not a case where we were down on Greg Vaughn. It was just -- it was crowded in the outfield. I hate to think where this club would be without Greg Vaughn this year because he has done a great job of carrying us at times. I really again -- I think we have to consider ourselves lucky not to have made that trade because he has done so much for us this year.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, we have said before all these games even postseason that Randy would be more the 8th inning guy or even 9th if we needed help there with, you know, Hoffman, if we had to make a change there. But Langston has been doing a good job. I mean, he almost retired in late August. We said, hey, how about pitching in the bullpen. Let's see how it looks. His arm has been responding well and he has been doing well. So we have confidence in him. It was that part of the order where we felt like Mark would get the job done and he made some good pitches. The wild pitch hurt us that inning. We had two outs, man on first, and he threw a breaking ball in the dirt and that put us in a tough situation. We ended up walking Williams and had to pitch careful to Chili Davis and then he got in a tight jam there with Tino and got a ball up. But you have two lefthanders, you use them both in that situation we both -- we thought that was Langston's role.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, sure, I think sometimes. If you look at Trevor Hoffman we used him in the 8th inning I think 15 times this year. We don't hesitate to bring him in the 8th inning. I have used Myers in the 7th inning, but that was more a case where we didn't have another lefthander. Again, that is confidence in Mark Langston being out there. He has a lot of experience. I know Randy Myers does. You didn't feel like that was the time to take out one lefthander and bring in another one because I do have confidence in Mark Langston and Randy Myers did a great job pitching out of a jam. We ended up having him later. So but sure, I think you could move guys around. We have done that. Sometimes you have a game plan before the game and you stick with it.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, it is a challenge. He has got great stuff and he is pitching very well now. I think he has got to be considered one of the best closers in the game, especially the way he is throwing now. But we did have a pretty good situation up there, Finley was up with the bases loaded, but he made some good pitches there. So any time you go against a closer like Rivera, sure, it is tough. We know that. We feel the same about our closer.

BRUCE BOCHY: His quad was bothering him just a little bit yesterday. He was getting worked on during the game. This allows us to keep him off his legs a little bit being a D.H., and with the day off tomorrow, hopefully this thing will clear up because once we go back to San Diego, we'd like to have him available in leftfield.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, sure, I think the morale of the ballclub matters. But you get to know your ballclub and we have had some tough losses all year. We had some in the playoffs, and you know, there is no question in my mind that this club is going to be ready to play tonight. If I thought there was, I might say something. But I have seen this club rebound too many times, and I think it is a very resilient club. I just think that they will be fine. Sure it is a tough loss when you have a 5-2 lead in the first game of a World Series, but they will put that behind them.

BRUCE BOCHY: Sure. Again, we will keep an eye on him and see how he makes progress here the next couple of days. But no question, he is a strong possibility for Game 4.

BRUCE BOCHY: Well, I saw the pitch. I think what is important is that we put that pitch behind us. That pitch was a ball and we can't dwell on that. Sure, it would have been nice to have that call. It was a pretty good pitch, could have gone either way, and being on our side, we would liked to have had that pitch. I mean Mark felt like he threw it where he wanted, but what is important now, hey, the pitch was a ball and we can't think about that. It is over and we just need to turn the page.

End of FastScripts�.