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NL DIVISION SERIES: ROCKIES v PHILLIESOctober 2, 2007Jeff FrancisClint HurdleDan O'DowdPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Workout Day Q. How was the flight here, what time did you get in; are you tired? CLINT HURDLE: No, not tired at all. The flight here was smooth. We landed at 8:30. So, we're good to go. Q. For Clint and Jeff. A lot of the folks in the other locker room are strong believers that Rollins should be MVP. Why do you think your guy Matt should be? CLINT HURDLE: Should you don't think I ought to think Jimmy roll ins ought to be the MVP? (Laughter.) I think he's the second-best player in the National League this year. He's had a tremendous year. Matt Holliday for us is the MVP. A combination of power, hand eye coordination, batting average, the doubles. The runs he's driven in this year have been significant. Timing has been critical. He's the No. 3 hitter in a very good lineup and volume of games he played is also significant. So, there's arguments for both men. The National League will not have a black eye whoever wins this MVP, they will have a representative person. I just feel strongly for Matt Holliday. JEFF FRANCIS: I think we all do just for what he's brought to this team. Obviously we are a little biased because we get to see him play every day. Just what he's brought to the team, both on and off the field and in the clubhouse, really only we see it, and obviously he's got our vote. Q. For Jeff, this Phillies' offense has had some success against you this year. Does that concern you a little bit going into this big game about how well they have done against you? JEFF FRANCIS: Well, you know, it's no secret they have got a good offense. I think we match up pretty well with them offensively. It's just a matter of me going out and executing. I think the two games I faced them this year, I didn't execute very well. I walked a lot of guys and left some balls out there. I think the way I throw the ball lately, it's gone a little better and if I go out and execute; it might be a high-scoring game, who knows. But hopefully our offense can back us up and take a little of the pressure off me. Q. Are any of you a little surprised to be here considering how far back you were and how you had to fly over so quickly? Half the season, you had a few weeks to do it; do you have to pinch yourself at all? CLINT HURDLE: No. The thing we have held on to from day one is the belief we had in ourselves in the clubhouse and we really were not concerned about outside comments and outside opinion. Most everybody is entitled to one and most everybody has one. But we locked into ours, and ours was we had a good team. And one of the biggest challenges of our ballclub was not to be reactionary to a game we had played the night before and not let our club be shaken over one performance, and this club established that had early. DAN O'DOWD: When we went through our tough times, we decided to focus this organization on one day at a time. I think that got us through some very difficult rebuilding points to get here, and I actually think the one-day-at-a-time mentality really seeped into our clubhouse. I think that served us very well over the last three weeks, because I think we did a good job of forgetting about yesterday and not worrying about tomorrow and staying within the present. You know, that started long before the last couple weeks. CLINT HURDLE: Don't get we wrong, we knew it was a reach, but we thought we were capable of it. We aren't here to 2-putt. We were not here to get it close. We were here to nail it and we nailed it. Q. Along the same lines, what would you say the single most characteristic was; was it talent, heart, good fortune? CLINT HURDLE: Well, that's a very good question, and if I had to choose one, it would be their unselfishness, if I had to choose one. Now, we can trip into some other areas but this has been the most unselfish group of men I've ever been around to play baseball. It's a group of men that come together and they have a common goal and they do not care who gets the credit, which is not always the case in today's athletic society. Q. Clint, real quick; Matt, is there any update on him physically? Obviously he was a little dazed last night after the play at home plate, and we were sitting here a couple of weeks ago regarding you talking about instant replay; based on Atkins' ball, and controversy regarding the play at home plate, any stronger feeling on that issue in particular? CLINT HURDLE: You want to know about Matt first? He's resting comfortably. Q. Should be (available)? CLINT HURDLE: I don't anticipate anything. He was on the plane. I spoke with him last night. He's got a nice medal of honor on his chin that he'll be sporting the next couple of weeks. And my comments on replay, last time I was here, you can probably pull those clips. I don't have anything to say on replay. I think I've made my thoughts and my statements pretty clear, and I don't think it needs to be continued to beat around. Q. Your team is very home grown and you have a lot of power arms which seems to be a new philosophy for you, how does each of those play into where you are now? DAN O'DOWD: Obviously losing three starting pitchers in ten days or almost 12 days, we had to turn to our farm system. We didn't draw it up that way. We felt that Ubaldo was on course, Franklin was being pushed a little bit. But again, this has been a long process with the Rockies. It started a lot of years ago. It started with development in Latin America program about seven years ago, and so a lot of the power arms you're seeing now are guys out of our Latin America program. There's really no secret or magic to it. It's just a matter of percent veering and having a philosophy and sticking with it. Obviously we would not be here today if it was not for Ubaldo and Franklin stepping up the way we did. We're very confident in them. They really have no fear at all when they go out to the mound. Actually, I think they are looking forward to the opportunity that's going to be presented to them this week. And obviously I feel very blessed to have those guys to turn to, but I don't think there's any secret to that, and I don't think that was good scouting and good development done by our guys. Q. Can you talk about the similarities between your ballclub and the Phillies? Seemed like you were on similar paths in that you both had to overcome tremendous odds to get here. Can you talk about this match up in terms of where you guys are similar? CLINT HURDLE: Charlie and I talked about that the last time we were here. There's a lot of common fabric I found between the clubs when you just start breaking them down. You look at the journeys that each club has taken respectively. You have a new cluster of offensive players that are probably the most identifiable characteristic with the club, and you have a couple veterans that bring a lot of heart and guts to the program. You've got some pitchers that have had to battle and scratch and claw to get outs, but they have gotten them. You have had a bullpen that has probably turned over a couple different times but it's turned over at the right time. Their bullpen finished very strong. Our bullpen was recreated at one point in time in the season and it finished very strong. I think the Phillies club plays with a lot of emotion. They are dripping with guts over there just like we are. And they have skills to go with it which is a nice combination -- (cell phone ringing). I think this is President Bush. I apologize for that. How about that? Is that ironic? For the guys that follow us every day, this is like the worst thing in the world that can happen to them when they have a meeting when we get together. The similarities are numerous. But the offensive characteristics, there's a combination and we had it at one time -- we had a lot more speed at one time than we do now and power. We've lost some of our speed but we still have some powers. Those were the things Charlie and I talked about. Q. You guys faced them a couple of weeks ago and sometimes when you get to the post-season, you don't have this quick of a turnaround time between non-divisional rivals. Does that help that you saw these guys three weeks ago here? And for Clint, the part-two question is, how much will the shadows play a part in these games here with the 3 o'clock start times? I know the Phillies were complaining the other day; tough picking up the ball in the middle of those shadows. JEFF FRANCIS: You know, I think it is better that they are fresh in our mind. We did play them, I think it was two or three weeks ago. You know, it is fresh and we did play in this ballpark and we know how it's going to play. We didn't play any day games. Like you said, we did play them not long ago and they are fresh in our mind so that might help a little bit. CLINT HURDLE: Four night games, last time we were in. I think the last time we played a day game would have been that wonderful 24-hour trip we made and we flew from Colorado to Philadelphia, played a night game and a day game and flew back, and I think it was a one o'clock start and it really didn't come into play. It's something we really don't have any experience with, we've had shadows and experience playing in other Parks, so we'll deal with it. We've got sunglasses I think. I think we brought them, so we should do okay. Q. What are some of the things that you may do tonight, looking at tape, just talking to the coaches, some of the things that you do the night before a start to prepare, some of the things that you might try to get away from or embrace the night before to get ready for a start? JEFF FRANCIS: Being my first post-season game, just try to get myself ready for the excitement and the hype and not being surprised. I know it's going to be there. I've made first starts of seasons and things where you might get surprised and heart rate gets up and surprises you a little bit. Just try to get myself ready for those things and the pitches I want to make and going over the lineup in my head. Get to the ballpark tomorrow and go over the lineup with the catcher and pitching coach and go out and execute. That's the bottom line. Q. Which one of the most improbable moments from the past couple of weeks sticks out in your mind, whether it be the walk-off homer, or the inside-the-parker by Atkins, last night's rally off Trevor Hoffman in the 13th; it's been an amazing couple of weeks. CLINT HURDLE: Well, for me personally, it would have been the one that was out of our hands. Everything that's been there for us to do something with, we felt confident we could get it done. But when you're on the outside looking in, and, you know, we're watching the game, we're sitting in the clubhouse, and you want to talk about dripping with irony, and Gwynn comes up to face Hoffman, and the swings before that and his swings. You're just looking and you're going like, this isn't looking real good, I'm not getting a good feel here. And then click, the ball is in play, the run scores and you're just starting to think again. You know what, there's some craziness still out there, and there was. And we believe there's still some craziness out there. So for me that was probably the one -- we had no control over that. And for that to happen and to work our way, I thought it boded well for us. Q. Just the whole combination? DAN O'DOWD: Yeah, how they sequenced up tonight in front of a packed house that were true baseball fans. You know, they were in every pitch; and the excitement, the electricity and the fact that we scored a lot of runs against Trevor Hoffman, and Jake Peavy; one, one of the elite pitchers in the game, and the other one, the Cy Young winner in the National League and might be the best competitor we face all year long, it's pretty neat. Q. With everything you guys have gone through this season, especially re-doing the pitching staff and everything, did it give you a new appreciation for how to go about building a team at all? DAN O'DOWD: We've been trying to build this team for years. And in the game of baseball, you know, we just decided that we were not going to try to take a lot of shortcuts. We did the shortcut thing early on and paid a significant price for it and spent a lot of time digging out of that. You know, we've been trying to build a balanced club, you know, for years but we decided to do it internally. Clint and I knew at some point in time, this would click. The fact that it clicked now, it's great and tremendous for our franchise and our fan base. You know, we've got a good club. One thing that's been overlooked in this whole thing is the magic, and it really has been a magical ride up to now; is that we've got good players, and they are talented players, and they have great character on top of it. And when you put talented players together with great character, usually in this game, you get some good results? Q. You came into this game as a player with a whole lot of pedigree, and now you're watching the Francises and Hamels and others come out of the box flying; based on your experience, how hard is that to do, and how would you talk about the different players on the different teams like that? CLINT HURDLE: God bless them all, because it's so good for the game to have some refreshing, skillful talent come up that seem to have good foundations. Our guy right here is probably about as even-keeled a young man as I've met in the game. And then you add Tulowitzki to the mix, and they just don't come around very often. When you get two of them together or three of them together at one time, it does make it special. You look at Howard and the Hamels kid, other players in the league; we have not seen him pitch yet, but we've watched a lot of tape. Obviously they have got some good advice or listened to people or brought up well, something good has happened along the way because their heads are not bigger than their bodies, at least they don't seem to be. I can speak on behalf of my two guys. They have a respect for the game and they don't seem to be in awe of anything. That's one thing we talk long and hard about at our ballpark, and for me it's refreshing. Times have changed. I do think organizations have provided a lot more help along the way, also, than maybe in the past. The challenges that a player had in the 70s are a little different now than they are 20 years later. And I'm proud of any young player that can come up here and hit the ground running. I know the demands and the challenges that I faced. It's just good to have that new infusion of blood every year, every other year. Q. Clint, you were able to use ten pitchers; is it going to be an adjustment going back to a normal roster and have you given thought to 11 pitchers? CLINT HURDLE: You mean we can't use all those pitchers anymore? (Laughter.) We'll figure something out. We do have a set up that we're kind of in favor of right now. We'll set our roster by tomorrow at 10:00 AM. We'll talk about that later this evening. But we do like some of the flexibility that some of the people have provided out there. We won't carry the volume that we've had in the past, but I think we're going to do what needs to be done as far as us providing some different looks and some people who have been hot this month to stay involved. Q. You faced the Phillies starting lineup; what makes them so difficult in terms of pitching and all that? How do you approach that? JEFF FRANCIS: Well, in that lineup it doesn't seem like there's a break. The last time I faced them, Victorino wasn't even in the lineup and it still seemed right up to the pitcher's spot, there wasn't a break. Obviously with Victorino back in there and Dudley hitting third; Howard, Burrell, Rowand, it just doesn't stop. Those guys they have all had great years, and they all have produced and they can all do it at any time. It's up to me to go out and it comes down to execution. If I can execute my pitches and execute a game plan that I come up with, then hopefully we can keep run totals low and come out on top. Q. This ballpark has been called many names other than Citizens Bank Park by many pitchers and guys who have played here. What do you have to do to be successful in this particular ballpark? JEFF FRANCIS: Well, I mean, coming up with the Rockies, you know, people ask you about our ballpark, too. I guess you always kind of wait until you get there and you kind of realize that it's the same for both teams. So if I do what I do and our offense does what they do, you know, if we win 10-9, it's the same as winning 4-3. To me it's all the same. If we come out with one more run than the other team, it's all the same to me. Q. To stay on that ballpark theory, how much do you think the ballparks factor into this series? Obviously both are hitter-friendly. CLINT HURDLE: Well, they are hitter-friendly. Have you been to our ballpark lately? A lot of people still make comments about our ballpark, and they haven't been there in years. It's changed. The terrain has chained. The balls still get up and go; we're at 5,280, the elevation is not going to change, but the ballpark has changed and I've been there through this time, and it's not as much hitter-friendly as it used to be. Opposing pitchers talk about it. Our pitches talk about it, people who have been around have experienced it; hitters have noticed a change. I'm all for fan-friendly ballparks. Obviously they cause confusion when the ball comes close to the fence and the fans get involved, and that's a whole other deal. If it's good for the game, I'm a fan of it. All of the ballparks seem to be generated towards offense, the new ones. That's the bottom line. I don't know if that's a theme. It's just the way it is. And more often than not, people like to see runs scored. I myself, I don't mind seeing runs scored, but I hate to see runs given up. That's the challenge involved. I think the ballparks, they are symbolic of the clubs. These guys have embraced this ballpark. They are pitchers -- they know they are pitching here; it's their park. They have to find ways to get out. Their hitters have the opportunity to lead from line to line and so do we. We get back to our ballpark, it's somewhat similar. But it plays out much different than had has in the past. For me, I've appreciated the change in our ballpark. It has given us a much more level playing field when we are at home and on the road; there's not so much of a drastic swing as there used to be. Q. How much times have you watched the replay of the slide last night and what was your reaction? Do you think he touched the plate? CLINT HURDLE: I saw it this morning, and from the one angle, the ticker was on the bottom and it was inconclusive for me. (Laughter.) I'm still wondering, you know, about the ball we hit for the double, about how it bounced back sideways and the other way with the padding, I don't know. That's part of the game that you can't figure out. You go, "what if?" There's a whole lot of what ifs that happened. I'm not so sure he got the play, but I'm not so sure he doesn't. I'm not so sure if the ball is a home run and I'm not so sure the ball was a double. Bottom line is we were the ones that were fortunate enough to be jumping around the at end of the game. Q. How concerned are you about the Phillies speed? On paper, it looks like they have an advantage. Does that concern you? JEFF FRANCIS: That's a big weapon for them. I think, you know, the top two guys in that lineup are two of the fastest guys, two of the top five fastest guys in the League. Rollins showed that in the last game of the year, what he's capable of doing. It's something to be aware of, but you don't want it to get in the way of executing pitches. Torrealba has got a good arm back there. If we can give him a chance to throw them out, he's got the arm to be able to do it. CLINT HURDLE: I think one of the other things had a might work in our factor is we've got two left-handed pitchers scheduled to start against them which will give them a different look. They are not as successful running at left-handed pitching as they are against right-handed pitching and that might present them a different challenge. But speed is a dynamic that you can't teach, and those guys are both good baserunners and the antidote to that is keep them off base as best you can. Q. A lot has been made of the similarities, you alluded to it earlier, what are the significant differences between these two clubs, if any? CLINT HURDLE: You know, I really don't want to -- you've got a bunch of experts in here. You guys can get together later and talk about that. (Laughter.) We know what we need to do to win, and one of our mantras is play 27 outs on defense. We are very respectable on the defensive side of the game. I think everyone tries to be but we are very efficient with it, and with the speed dynamic they have, we need to get outs and get balls put away. Again, I think one of the building blocks for our offense, when we have opportunities to score, we need to score. We're a team that seems to thrive on momentum; and if we get one hit, we get another one, we can cluster things. Shut down innings; when we score, we have to shut them down. When they score we have to come back. I think it's a thing a lot of teams talk about, but fortunately the eight teams that are in it at this time are a little more successful than the others. Q. Considering the emotions of last night and the short turnaround and getting in here this morning, do you think that will have any physical or mental impact on tomorrow? CLINT HURDLE: I don't know. We're looking forward to play. As I said, we didn't come here to get close. We are not all giggly because we got here now and it's all said and done. These opportunities don't present themselves all the time. We don't want to have a knock-on-the-door mentality. We want to kick the door in and keep moving forward. We are not working out today. Our guys will catch a nice breather. We got in, as I said, very early this morning. Our team has been challenged numerous times throughout the season, whether it be from an energy standpoint; I don't have any doubt they are going to show up very well. They are looking forward to this opportunity. They have embraced this last month to go through and through the run out there that we. Once the playoffs start, anything can happen, there's no doubt about that. But I'm very confident of this club's skills and their makeup as we enter into this thing. End of FastScripts |
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