AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v YANKEES

October 6, 1999

Rick Helling

RICK HELLING: Not really. You know, I don't think really anybody expected us to win this series anyway. To me, all the pressure's on the Yankees. They won the first game. Obviously it would be nice if we won the second game, went back home with a split. But as far as actual pressure, no, not at all. I mean, to me, we've been the underdog. We've been the underdog all year. Everyone talked about us matching up with the Yankees, if we can get back here and if we can finally beat them. We haven't yet. So as far as extra pressure, not at all. Nobody expects us to win, so there's not really pressure on you when you're not expected to win. It's when you're expected to win there's pressure.

RICK HELLING: Well, that's, I mean that's a game-to-game thing with me. Last game obviously wasn't as good as the game before. On the side, I thought I felt like I threw it fine. I made some adjustments. That, for me, is a feel pitch, pretty much is for any pitcher. I have confidence in it. If it's not working, I'll use my other pitches. You make the best with what you have that night. You obviously just throw a couple in the first inning, say it's not working and then throw it away. You have to keep throwing it, make the hitter know you're going to throw it. Obviously if it's working, it's going to make your job easier. The more pitches you have in your repertoire, the easier it is to pitch. If I go out there and it's not how I want it to be, I'll just make do with what I have and I'll do what I can to try to get them out with my other pitches.

RICK HELLING: Well, I think, no. I mean our offense, I have complete faith in our offense. You look at what we've done over the last two years, offensively, we're one of the best offensive teams in all of baseball. There's no question about that. You get to the post-season and obviously everything's magnified, especially with the series we played against the Yankees last year and so far the game this year, we haven't scored many runs. Our offense is capable of scoring ten runs a game if we start swinging the bats the way we can. The main thing I think everybody will tell you if you put yourself in position to have success, eventually it's going to happen. Last night, El Duque threw a great game. We had chances early to score runs and we just couldn't get that big hit. Our team has traditionally gotten that big hit when we needed it and eventually it's going to happen. I have a ton of faith in our offense. It doesn't put pressure on me. I'm trying to throw zeros on the board anyway. What the offense does, I don't worry about what they do, more times than not they're going to score runs for us.

RICK HELLING: Main thing is we lost. That's the one thing I remember. I felt like I threw the ball pretty well, but we came out on the losing end. When you're in the playoffs, that's the main thing -- to win. You know, I think I went six innings, threw the ball fairly well, gave the team a chance to win, but it was just like, you know, it has been so far in all these games against the Yankees, we got outpitched a little bit, didn't score enough runs to win. That's what it's all about. If we only score one run, last year the game I pitched was the only run we scored. I can only afford to give up zero. If we score eight, I can give up seven and still win. It doesn't matter. It's all -- playoffs is all about wins and losses to. To me, I don't care about my personal stats, I haven't really all year. As long as we win, that's all that matters. Hopefully tomorrow I can throw a good game and give the team a chance to win and we can score enough runs to win. That's what it's all about.

RICK HELLING: I wouldn't necessarily say that's the key. You know, the key is to limit them as much as possible. If I give up a solo home run here or there and we've already scored five or six, it's not going to kill us. If it's a close ball game, a tie ball game and I give up a two or three-run shot, obviously that puts you in a hole. So you obviously don't ever want to give up home runs, but in certain situations they're less meaningful than in others. So I wouldn't necessarily say that's the key to the game. But they definitely have a dangerous line-up, no question about it. You have to make good pitches to get them out. Obviously giving up a single is better than giving up a home run at any time. But I wouldn't say that's the key to the game. Each game is its own individual entity, just per se, and depending on how the game's going, you know, we may be ahead seven or eight to nothing early or it could be a 0-0 game in the 8th inning. That's going to dictate the way I pitch and the way the rest of the team plays.

RICK HELLING: I don't think so. I mean we have -- you look up and down our line-up, it's a bunch of veteran players. It's not like we're sending out eight or nine rookies there. They've all been around for a long time, they know how to play the game. You get to the playoffs and, you know, the old cliche is it's all about pitching and defense in the playoffs. You know it's going to be tough to score runs. You're facing the other team's best pitchers at all times. And for whatever reason, we just haven't scored many runs. You have to give the Yankees' pitchers credit. There's no question they have a great pitching staff over there. I think our offense feels we've had our chances, we just haven't had that big hit. We've done that all year, when we've needed a big hit we've been able to get it. So far this year, just yesterday I guess in the playoffs, we didn't get that big hit. Like I said earlier, you give yourself enough chances, eventually it's going to happen. We definitely had chances to score yesterday. El Duque threw a great game; but it's not like he cruised the first few innings. There's base runners, we had opportunities to score some runs. Bases loaded in the first inning, a big hit right there, would have been a totally different ball game. Their pitchers do a good job of shutting us down when we need that big hit. Eventually, like I said, if we keep giving ourselves a chance, one of these times we'll get that big hit and maybe jump out to the early lead.

RICK HELLING: I think playoff experience definitely helps. The Yankees are there it seems like year in and year out. That helps. We've been there a lot the last two years. We have playoff experience as well, obviously not as solid as the Yankees tradition. As far as turning it on and off, if the Yankees are able to do that, they're pretty impressive. To me, I don't think you can say we're playing a pretty good team now, we need to turn it up. We're in the playoffs, we can turn it on well and start playing well. If they can do that, they found something I don't think anybody else knows about. I think all Major League Baseball players are out there playing hard every day. You're going to have days when you don't play well and days when you do. The Yankees have a definite playoff experience factor that I think helps. I think the more you're there, the easier it is to deal with the pressure, the media, whatever it may be. But as far as turning it on and off, I don't think that's possible. I know as far as our team goes, we play hard every day, and you try to step it up in bigger games and bigger situations and you know it's more intense and each mistake is probably more costly, but if it was that easy to do, you would do it all the time.

RICK HELLING: Obviously Bernie led the League in hitting last year. He was, I don't know, top five again this year. He's fast. He's got power. He's hard to strike out. He's hard to double -- hit into a double-play. He's a great guy to have in the middle of the line-up for them. You know, like I said, he's swinging a hot bat right now. In the playoffs, the way I look at it is everybody's swinging a hot bat. You can't afford to make mistakes to anybody. With Bernie in the middle of the line-up, the way he swung the bat yesterday and at the end of the year -- you try to pick your spots and you try to do your best to make good pitches on him. You know, their whole line-up is quality. It's not like you can just pick out one guy and say this is the guy you can't let beat you. I think that's why they have success; is because they're willing to take that walk or sacrifice their at-bat to let the next guy beat you. Especially last year's team I thought was really good at that, and this year's team is basically the same team. There isn't any selfishness in that line-up. They're not afraid to walk and let the next guy try to beat you. Like I said, up and down the line-up, one through nine, just like our line-up, they have guys that can beat you. You can't single out one guy. Even though Bernie's hot, the other eight guys are just as good and can hurt you just as much. You have to pitch all of them extremely tough.

RICK HELLING: Well, Aaron and I are similar style pitchers, so the last two years we've followed each other. He's either pitched the day before me or the day after me for two years straight now, and we talk a lot about the opposing line-up and how we plan to get them out. Obviously I'm not going to go into that with you. But there's things you see that you can try to approach a hitter, but like I said, their hitters are so good, there's not really many weaknesses. You have to just make good pitches. If you make good pitches, your chances are better than if you make bad pitches. I thought Aaron threw the ball great last night. The first run was scored on a ball that Rusty lost, and then he gave up the other -- the other two runs late before he got pulled. But I thought Aaron threw the ball extremely well. He mixes his pitches well. He threw a lot of fast balls early in the game and mixed his breaking ball in there later. With the Yankees, I think you just can't stay in a pattern with them. Their line-up is extremely good on sitting on pitches and if you keep throwing them the same pitch in the same spot, they're going to just do it and hit it. As far as what I learned last night, like I said, there's some little things that I saw, but obviously I'm not going to go into that with you. With Aaron and I being similar style pitchers, it helps a little bit to look at what he's done and I can try to do the same things.

RICK HELLING: I think the main thing, just all -- I mean everything you mentioned basically has been the problem in those situations. But it all stems back to one thing, and that's consistency with my delivery. This year I haven't been as consistent with my delivery as I was last year, and, therefore, it causes you to fall behind in the count, causes you to miss your location more. All those things go back to that, and, you know, that's something you're constantly working on as a pitcher, is to be consistent with your delivery so when you're on the mound all you have to worry about is trying to get the hitter out. You're not worried about am I rushing to the plate, are my mechanics good? You're focusing on what you need to do to get this hitter out. And I have the utmost confidence in myself that I'll make the pitch when I have to. There's going to be games, there's going to be pitches when I don't. But I work hard between starts. I work hard between starts to get that consistency and to get the feel for all my pitches, and, you know, I think I'm ready for tomorrow. Obviously it's a big game for us. I know the Yankees are going to be ready as well. I'm going to try to come out and do the best I can to give our team a chance to win.