NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS v BRAVES

October 12, 1999

Bobby Cox

Q. Bobby, does it bother you that the city has had such a hard time selling out the game; it's so hard selling tickets to a game like this?

BOBBY COX: Quite honestly, I didn't know it wasn't sold out. Bad forecast tonight, too. I thought it was sold out.

BOBBY COX: Walt's been here for a while. He's a very good shortstop. He feels really great. Obviously, he hasn't played in a long time. He did play down the stretch in a few ballgames and looked good. He looked good in Houston when he came in, and Don has him swinging a lot better right now. He's a great defensive shortstop and I thought I'd go that way for tonight's game, anyway.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, I saw some film of him swinging last night at the workout and he looked pretty healthy. We'll watch him swing tonight at batting practice. Yeah, I think we'll treat him exactly the same. If he's fit to play and fit, we should respect that.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, I think there is a little bit. But we've always had a third guy that could catch. It's always been Colbrunn, the last two years, and that could play first base, and he was one of our better pinch-hitters. We didn't have him this year. We've elected to go with Fabregas, a legitimate catcher. We always carried three guys that could catch. And one would sort of go with two, with Eddie and Myers. But Eddie does have a little bit of a bad knee. He's not a fast runner to begin with, and it doesn't affect his running, but it could possibly blow out. And if you're going with one catcher, it's a little bit dangerous. But nine pitchers is a little dangerous, too. We'll see.

BOBBY COX: Well, I guess they're a little different, more vocal, maybe in New York, but we have terrific baseball fans in the city. And New York is a little different, period. There's Met lovers there forever, a big rivalry with the Yankees, and the Met fans fight with the Yankee fans. We don't have that down here. I walked a lot in New York and met a lot of people. I think some of them come to the games; they seem polite and nice. Every ballpark is going to have problems at times in the stands. We're probably no different.

BOBBY COX: I really don't know if there's any type of an edge there. You're still nervous and butterflies and all that, because it's fun and it's a big deal for us. We try to get here every year, and we've been lucky enough to accomplish that. I don't know, first-inning jitters, I think everybody is going to have them.

BOBBY COX: It's a little bit different than last year's team, actually, without Lopez in there and Galarraga with a lot of power, but yet it's still a very, very good ballclub. It's different in ways -- I think this year's club is a very good base-running club. There's nothing I've done to make them better base runners; it's just the fact that we've run the bases very well this year; stolen a few more bases. We've got clutch performances from guys like Gerald Williams all year long. Once he got in the line-up and stayed there, I left him in there. He's a much better player than just a platoon type guy. We don't ever pinch-hit for him anymore. He's gotten a lot of big hits. We had guys on the bench, when those guys went down, guys stepped it up a notch and did very well with it. And given the opportunity, you know, they took it and ran. Power-wise we're probably -- we don't hit as many home runs, but I think this year, we scored more runs than last year.

BOBBY COX: Well, I can't ever remember going through the motions the last week of the season. Even though we had closed the other teams out, we've never done that. And we played awfully hard in New York this year because they were still in it along with Cincinnati and the other clubs. I don't think we're ever any sharper. I think clinching it early gives you an opportunity to set things up the way you want. I'm sure Boston would love to have Martinez starting tomorrow night. And some teams that get in it just can't do that. Mike Hampton pitched, what, the third game.

BOBBY COX: I don't know what the weather is going to be like tonight. I know they're calling for drizzle, and it is out there right now. But we're going to hit in it, and we may even start the game in a slight drizzle. And the wind was blowing. And sometimes you don't know which way the ball is going to fly out of here, either; it could be blowing in and swirling out. The only thing that bothers pitchers, if you can pitch in Candlestick, you can pitch anywhere. All of our pitchers have been through that, and so have the Mets. Cold nights where the balls are slick, and you don't have any moisture on it, I think pitchers do lose touch.

BOBBY COX: We have not seen Kenny Rogers. He did not pitch against us. We've seen him a lot on television and videos and things like that; and we've got videos, whatever that's worth. But we know a lot about him, of course. And when he's on, he can be as tough as anybody.

BOBBY COX: With the Yankees, yes. I don't really remember that game (laughter.) That's the game we had the lead and we lost it.

BOBBY COX: I don't think so. I honestly don't think so. They've been a real class ballclub over there. I like a lot of their guys. There's a few players in the League you'd rather not have on your team, probably, but I couldn't name you one on that team.

BOBBY COX: I think guys try different things in batting practice, hitting the ball the other way and stuff like that, and in the games they don't actually do that. But guys that are injured, sure, you'd like to get a little look at them. I'll have somebody watching, if I'm not, to see what Mike is doing. But I saw enough last night to see he's pretty healthy. So it wouldn't make a lot of difference.

BOBBY COX: That was a little different, and tonight we probably won't have that luxury to use starters out of bullpen or anything. John Smoltz has only had two days' rest since he pitched. I doubt that we could bring him in tonight, since he's pitching Game 4. Possibly tomorrow night. I'm not saying we won't, but we'll go with the regular bullpen tonight, yeah. A three-out-of-five-series is tough. Cleveland just lost, and they had a two-game advantage. It's such a crapshoot when you go in there on a short series that every inning is important. Not just the game, but every inning is so important.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, I think the first round, definitely. No team really should play like the Indians, or even the Red Sox, if they hadn't of won. It's not quite fair to have a five-game -- I know it's going to take a lot longer. But maybe they should reduce the number of games in the regular season, cut it down a little bit, and certainly make the first round a seven-game series. I don't think you play all year long and get knocked out in three games; it's not quite fair, likes Texas.

BOBBY COX: You know, we've played really good against them. A lot of those games have been tight, and a lot of those games could have gone either way. What we expect to do is to play good baseball; that's what we're going to attempt to do. And if we catch a break here and there, then maybe we'll have some success.

BOBBY COX: Sure, the Dodgers were always a team that we were trying to catch, and the old Cincinnati Reds were that way. But the Dodgers were the team that everybody was always trying to catch, and to beat, and I guess it's that way with the Mets. We've won our division for a number of years. The Dodgers used to do that consistently. But I thought the Mets, really, they had a lot of tough luck, when they had those young pitchers, Isringhausen, Pulsipher and Wilson, those guys came at one time. And it looked as though they were going to have some starting rotation. All those guys were injured and something happened to them. They've done a great job. With the pitching you have now, it's hard when you lose three young guys like that, that you were building with, and still later, be right in the thick of it.

BOBBY COX: He's been awfully solid. I think -- I don't know exactly the stats on his first four or five starts, but since that time of the season he is almost -- he's carried a few no-hitters, not really close to the 9th inning, but he's had a lot of them after the 4th and 5th inning, where nobody has collected a hit. He's been one of the dominating pitchers in our League, I think. Even though he won 17 last year, he's much better this year.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, you bet I do. He's in the same class, sure is. I wish he would get a few more votes for Cy Young this year, but I don't know.

BOBBY COX: John Rocker and Rudy Seanez came up together last year, and they really made our bullpen strong. And it changed it for us a lot, I thought. And yeah, you could see it. And there was some debate going into the season whether or not John would be the closer or Ligtenberg would be the closer. Ligtenberg is the guy that has good stuff and throws a lot of strikes; so he's perfect for that roll. But John closed enough games or set up enough games that we were interested in him a lot in that position. And he's had a great year and having a great playoff.

BOBBY COX: Yeah, I don't really think much of that at all until it's brought up. And I don't really have an opinion on that. The only thing I'd tell you, you've been a strong organization in the 90's, and that's -- people can think what they want to think, I suppose. It would be good to be classified as the team of the 90's or the decade or whatever, but something we don't go around thinking about. Really, it's year to year.

BOBBY COX: Well, the Marlins had a real good ballclub, and Al Leiter was pitching for them and Kevin Brown. It's pretty similar, but any team that's in the playoffs, I don't really consider them a wild card. To get as far as they've gotten, they're a good ballclub, and they could have been a divisional winner. But the teams in there I don't consider wild cards.

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