AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS v YANKEES

October 2, 1997

Matt Williams

MATT WILLIAMS: I don't know. Just left the curve ball up in the zone, that's it, just tried to hit it, that's all.

MATT WILLIAMS: I'm not used to any, period. This is the second time -- I've had two at-bats against him. So I really don't know. He works both sides of the plate, he's got a very good cutter, and that's difficult to hit, he mixes in his off-speed pitches and fastball, so I don't have an answer for you there, he's a good pitcher.

MATT WILLIAMS: Just -- there's not much to talk about. It was the first pitch and he threw me a breaking ball that he left up in the strike zone a little bit and I tried to put a good wood on it and I happened to, that's all.

MATT WILLIAMS: Well, I don't know about momentum, I think we've had games like this with the Yankees all year. It certainly helps us to come out with a split. We don't want to go home in two and have to have our backs against the wall and have to win three at home. So it's nice to come out of here, especially with what happened a couple of days ago, how they came back, to have a split and go home to our home park and see what we can do there.

MATT WILLIAMS: It's a boost to hit with guys in any score position. A big hit from David, from Sandy, from Jimmy, in that inning, all in scoring position. I think we have that capability as an offense, but it really doesn't matter how many outs there are, it just happened that there were two in that inning.

MATT WILLIAMS: No, I'm not surprised with anything Jaret does. I think in the first inning he was a little pumped up with all the hype and given the off days and all the talk, and him being in the interview room and all that stuff, it's pretty natural to be a little pumped up. And once he settled down and once he started throwing the ball to Sandy and letting his stuff work for him he was just fine. After that first inning he pitched great.

MATT WILLIAMS: I'm certainly not a pitcher, but I've seen Jaret pitch all year, and I know that he's got as good of stuff as anybody in my opinion, so if he simply gets the ball and uses his pitches and throws the ball to Sandy or to Pat or whoever is catching, he'll do just fine, but that's very understandable, I think, 21 years old and be a little pumped up in the first inning, he did great.

MATT WILLIAMS: No, I went to the mound in the first inning and just tried to remind him, hey, make sure you pick up the glove and throw the ball to the glove. Tino hit the ball down the left field line, it was just -- it was simply good hitting, and you're going to get in that situation where you have bases loaded like that, he's looking for a pitch up in the zone to hit and he did a nice job of hitting in that situation, and Jaret settled down after that and pitched real well for us.

End of FastScripts….