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AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES v INDIANS


October 5, 2007


Joe Torre


CLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Two

ROB DOELGER: Questions.

Q. Joe, tonight Carmona, can you just talk about how he neutralized you guys and the struggles as a team you're having at the plate and with A-Rod continuing to struggle?
JOE TORRE: Well, A-Rod, he's not the only one, with three hits tonight you can't really put it on A-Rod. We just really didn't get anything going. Normally we're very good at manufacturing stuff. And we just were shut down. Carmona was terrific. His pitch count was great early on. He just commanded everything. He left a breaking ball up to Melky and he hit the home run.
Aside from that, we had the Jeter at second base with one out. But that's really all the threatening that we did.
They had done a great job coming out of that bullpen, and we're just going to have to find a way on Sunday.

Q. Do you feel like the bugs affected Joba?
JOE TORRE: They did but there's not much you can do about it. He was having trouble seeing out there. I'll tell you one thing about the kid, he never lost his composure, which is something that obviously was unusual and certainly didn't panic in any way. Unfortunately, it was at a bad time.

Q. Is the message after a game like tonight going forward to Sunday the same as it was all season since you've kind of had to fight back?
JOE TORRE: Yeah, we just can't -- I think this is what you're asking. We have to go out there and I know we have to win three games, but we have to think about winning one. And that's really where we're going right now and there's probably nobody better to pick us up than Roger. And we expect him to pitch a game like Andy, who was great.

Q. Do you recall anything like that, the bugs coming in for one inning like that and what was the explanation and did anybody have an idea?
JOE TORRE: The heat. You could see them when you looked. It was like blankets of stuff out there. And they just came and they were still out there, but not as heavy as they were in that 8th inning.

Q. I know it's a little early, but with eight hits here, would you consider any lineup changes for Sunday?
JOE TORRE: Not really. We'll see the tape tomorrow, figure it out and right now I'm not thinking about Sunday. I'll do that tomorrow.

Q. You mentioned Andy. I don't have a question, but I'd assume you'd like to say something about how he pitched tonight?
JOE TORRE: About as courageous a Game as he's had. It was really reminiscent of Game 5 in '96 to me, about the 4th inning on, I said one run is going to have to be enough looks like. Because Carmona was so dominant.
And I'll be damned if it almost wasn't good enough. But he was something especially when Grady was on third base and nobody out, coming through the middle of the batting order.

Q. Six years ago you had a team that faced a similar mountain to climb. Can you conjure anything in that memory at all to try and offer advice?
JOE TORRE: The only thing a little bit different there was we were going on the road, we lost two at home. We are going home and the only thing we can do is win one game at a time. I know it's trite and you've heard this stuff before, but that's where we are and that's what we need to do.
And we can't really worry about Monday or Wednesday until we get one under our belt. So it's the only way I'm trying to -- the message, my message is only going to be let's just try to get one and try and change the momentum.

Q. I know it's a bizarre thing what happened in the 8th. But do you have any recourse there? Can you ask them to delay the game? Did you ask them to delay the game?
JOE TORRE: I just wanted to make sure that he could pitch. I said, he's not able to see and stuff.
And I'm not sure, I think it's like anything else, I guess it's like a muddy field and stuff. The umpires feel that something had to be done, but I don't -- I really don't know what to tell you, because I've never seen anything like that before, especially all of a sudden coming on the scene like that.

Q. But you didn't ask them to actually delay the game, did you?
JOE TORRE: No. The only thing we wanted to do was make sure the kid was all right and was able to see. I said that's the biggest problem.

Q. These two games, how would you summarize, what's been the difference why Cleveland's up 2-0 as opposed to 1-1 or you 2-0?
JOE TORRE: They managed to pitch better than we have. You hate to say it in a 2-1 game. But that's what it came down to. They came out of that bullpen. And Carmona went out there and pitched nine innings and pitched his tail off. And we haven't been able to break through. We're pretty proud of our offense. But right now we're looking to score some runs, get some hits. Three hits tonight, that's not a great threat. If it wasn't for the home run, we wouldn't have had that.

Q. Considering that Giambi is 9-for-17 against the Indians, would you like him to get more involved in the next couple of games?
JOE TORRE: We're going to look at it. I haven't thought about the future right now. Tomorrow we'll work out, we'll try to get our thoughts organized.
ROB DOELGER: Thank you.

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