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NL DIVISION SERIES: CARDINALS v DIAMONDBACKS


October 12, 2001


Bob Brenly


ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Game Three

Q. Bob, talk about Counsell's home run and the way he's played big for you.

BOB BRENLY: He has been doing miraculous things for us all season. We had him in that two spot tonight. If you were here before the ball game, I said he handles left-handers well and he proved it tonight. He's come up with a lot of big hits for us, defensive plays, but probably none other than that one tonight.

Q. Were you surprised they left Matthews in as long as they did?

BOB BRENLY: That's not my decision to make. Whoever they choose to put out there on the mound, we'll do our best to score runs against him, it's not really my place to make a comment on that.

Q. Bob, you had to be happy with Batista's performance in his first ever post-season game.

BOB BRENLY: Miguel, as he done pretty much all season long, he gave us what we needed tonight. We don't expect him to go out there and throw nine innings. We don't expect him to shut the other team out completely, but we do expect him to keep us in the ball game. After the Edmonds home run he settled in nicely, made some great pitches in tough situations. And I didn't see him rattled or lose his poise out there one time during that ball game tonight.

Q. You've made an effort to use your bench, get a lot of at-bats for different people. Do you think that's paid dividends?

BOB BRENLY: It's not only tonight, but the entire season. We have a lot of good ball players, we have confidence in all of them. Certainly it's a lot easier to run a set lineup out there on a day-to-day basis, but because we have versatile players that have confidence in themselves, it allows me to have confidence in them. Because they've all come through in such a big way every time we put them in there, it makes it easy to mix and match with our lineup.

Q. How worried were you about Kim in the 9th? He just didn't look real sharp.

BOB BRENLY: No more worried than any other time I send him out there. He seemed to be struggling with his upshoot. It's a pitch -- with that underarm delivery that he gets to break up and away. A lot of swinging strikes on that pitch. But he couldn't get in the strike zone tonight. After a couple of attempts, he went to his sinker and slider and threw strikes with those pitches.

Q. Were those last two innings the most nerve racking of the season for you?

BOB BRENLY: Absolutely.

Q. You'll start Albie out tomorrow as planned?

BOB BRENLY: Albie Lopez will start the ball game tomorrow.

Q. You left Morgan in to face Drew in the 8th. What was your thinking with that?

BOB BRENLY: Well, we did have Greg Swindell warmed up in the bullpen, and he has good numbers against Drew and very limited at-bats, but Morgan had an unbelievable sinker tonight. That's a good thing, if we happen to walk him. We'll go to BK and go for the strikeout against Pujols. I know that put the tying run on base, I just felt at that particular juncture of the game I felt that was the best way to go.

Q. Talk about the return of the offense and in particular the home runs.

BOB BRENLY: Well, when you don't score runs and you don't get a lot of hits, it's easy to say the offense is not clicking, but I choose to give the credit to the Cardinals staff. They made mistakes in locations where we could get the bats on the ball, and our guys were patient to get those pitches and do something with them tonight. It was certainly nice to see the long ball to Gonzalez again, and Counsell coming up with the big home run. There were a lot of good base hits in that ball game.

End of FastScripts....

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