NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: PADRES v BRAVES

October 7, 1998

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: I think it was a reasonable thing to do, he only threw 9 pitches the first inning. I thought he'd cruise through the next inning.

BOBBY COX: Well, you know, it's a good play. He made it pretty easy. And the ball could have bounded somewhere, but they knocked it down. He plays hard. He's going to take the extra base.

BOBBY COX: It's a loss. I thought we did fine. The ball got hot there. Martinez did good. He got a chopper, and when he released it, I thought Rivera did -- Galarraga came off, and probably would have had him if he had bounced it. But we came back against their best reliever. We had him in trouble every inning. And I thought Ligtenberg threw great except for the one pitch to Caminiti.

BOBBY COX: Well, you finish almost 2:00 o'clock in the morning, it felt like a playoff game. We didn't have the introductions, and things like that. That took away from it a bit, I thought. But what are you going to do? Leonard Coleman made a great call starting the game, not completely knowing we'd get it in, but giving it a chance. It was a reasonable thing to do to start the game.

BOBBY COX: No. I thought Ashby was on top of the game and Smoltz was very tough. It didn't affect anything. The field was very playable. I don't think any throws related to a wet field or anything like that.

BOBBY COX: No. He was swinging up to 3-1. Tommy is one of the harder outs. He's really a tough out. And it didn't bother me a bit that he was the hitter, not one bit. He's got a few silver bats in his collection, and he can do a lot of things with the lumber.

BOBBY COX: He said he missed him. Is that what you mean?

BOBBY COX: I guess he was safe. I don't know, I can't see from the dugout. I couldn't tell.

BOBBY COX: A loss is a loss. I react the same. I'm not too pleased with losing anytime, if it's 10-1 or 1-0. We could have won the game easily. We screwed up a squeeze bunt. I thought Rivera -- we talked earlier about stars of the game, and who are you going to try to avoid in the batting order. Rivera goes in for an injured guy, hits a line drive and makes a great base running play against Andruw Jones, who threw it right on the money and he ended up safe. And that was the big run for them, I thought.

BOBBY COX: It's good pitching in all the playoffs with all the teams. It's not surprising that the game was that tight. I thought the pitching was good all over. I think if you're a betting guy, you'd say they'd be pretty tight.

End of FastScripts….