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MLB WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES v YANKEES

November 1, 2009

Joe Girardi

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Game Four

JOE GIRARDI: Lineup? Same as yesterday except change the pitcher.

Q. Could you talk about how Marte has kind of come into this role after he really wasn't with you for four months and didn't pitch particularly well until the end of the season? How has this all developed?
JOE GIRARDI: Once we signed him and added the extension, we thought he could be a very big player in our bullpen. He's very tough on left-handers. He's got angle, he's got deception, and we missed him at times this year. Phil Coke did a tremendous job for us, but there are times during the course of a game where you'd love to have two left-handers. It took some time to get him back. He went through a lot of rehab to get to this point. But he's had match-ups against these guys before, being in the National League, being in Pittsburgh, he's familiar with this ballpark in a sense, the hitters here, and we thought he could play a very important role.

Q. Robby Cano has been struggling so far in the series. Do you see anything in particular with him or is it the way they're pitching him?
JOE GIRARDI: I don't see anything in particular. It's a few games. He's hit some balls hard. I remember him lining out against Cliff Lee, pretty deep left-center field. It's such a small amount that if it's during the course of a season and you go a few days without a couple of hits, not much is said. But it seems to be really studied and analyzed when it's this time of year.
The big thing is get your pitch and try to put a good swing on it and see what happens. The other thing is we've faced some pretty tough pitching in this series, and that has something to do with it.
Q. Have you decided what you'll do with the rotation going forward? And if so, what went into the decision?
JOE GIRARDI: We've decided what we're going to do tomorrow - it will be A.J. We will continue to monitor our guys. We'll see how Andy is doing on his side day and the day off, and depending on what happens, we'll see how he's doing. But right now as far as we'll go is Game 5.

Q. Charlie had talked a little bit about maybe some reluctance on his part to throw guys on short rest. Is there anything on your part that gives you a little bit of ease? Do you talk to your guys about that? And have they given you their vote of confidence in it?
JOE GIRARDI: We've talked about it. Our guys feel good at this time of year. We took it easy on them -- that's probably a bad way to state it. We tried to give them some extra rest in the month of September, and they've had some extra rest during the playoffs that we thought was very important.
And as far as on three days' rest, it's not something that you would want to do a whole lot during the course of the year. CC has done it once this year; A.J. and Andy have not done it yet this year. A.J. has had a lot of success in his career going on short rest. CC was outstanding last year on short rest. He was very good against Anaheim.
The key is how they feel. There's a lot of discussion, and we curb their workload, and the rest has helped, and that's why we're doing it.

Q. I think you said yesterday that Mariano wouldn't be able to go two innings in last night's game. I think it was only five pitches last night. Do you have a feeling about tonight?
JOE GIRARDI: I probably wouldn't do it tonight, either, because he's thrown two out of three days. His workload a couple days ago was pretty heavy, so he probably wouldn't do any more than an inning.

Q. In a perfect world if Wang hadn't gotten hurt, do you think you'd be going with four starters in the post-season rather than three?
JOE GIRARDI: I can't tell you. That's the one thing I can't predict is what guys would have done. Chien Ming Wang was excellent for the Yankees, and it's unfortunate that he got hurt this year, and what he's been through the last two years. Here's a guy that had won 19 games in '06 and '07 and was on his way last year to winning 19 I believe before he hurt his foot. It's been a tough year for him going back to the foot injury. Maybe we would, maybe we wouldn't.

Q. Can you talk about the mindset of a CC or an A.J. of going on three days' rest and how important it is to get over the mental hurdle to want to be here at this time of year to make it work?
JOE GIRARDI: I think when you're talking about being at this level and being at this time of year, the competitiveness in these guys is tremendous, and they want the ball. They want to be out there. They want to help their club, and they want to do whatever it takes.
So as far as the mentality of it, to me that's usually not a concern. It's the physical part that's a concern.
If you're able to curb their workload and space it out, I think sometimes you can ask them to go on short rest.

Q. It's a dicey thing when you sit a guy down who's slumping because he can go either way for you. Swisher talked a lot last night, and the very positive thing how you handled it. I wondered if there was some background for you as a player or why you did it the way you did and whether you were worried at all that it would work.
JOE GIRARDI: I think one of the greatest pieces of advice that I've heard managers talk about and people talk about is don't ever forget how hard this game is to play. For me it was a struggle every day. I had different batting stances, I tried different bats. I came to camp with a leg kick and never used a leg kick in my life before. So I realize how hard this game is and how quickly it can turn around. I mean, you can be 0-for-30 and have the biggest hit of the post-season. That's the way this game is.
And you look at the guys that we have on our club, they've all went through struggles at some point during the season, and you don't give up on them. It's just part of the game. If you had your swing every day, there would be a lot of guys hitting .500 every year, and that just doesn't happen. I haven't forgotten how hard it was, and the importance of showing faith in people to me is a big part of this job.
I can go back to where I was a little boy and my parents showed faith in me. Coaches showed faith in me. I played in World Series games and was 0-for before I got a hit in Game 6. Joe didn't give up on me.
So I think it's important to understand that this game is very difficult, and you're talking about small samples and how quick things can turn around. But everything seems to get accentuated when it's the World Series or the playoffs because there's not a lot of other baseball to talk about.

Q. Based on the answer you gave on Marte before, did you believe then that as long as he was healthy you were going to get a pretty strong weapon in the post-season as opposed to the guy who had a nine and a half ERA?
JOE GIRARDI: I think, because we saw some good things in the month of September from Damo. Left-handers, he's had a lot of success in his career, and I think part of it is his angle, the velocity, the break on his pitches. There's a lot of things that goes into it. But I really believe that we could get him healthy that he could play an important role during the month of September and October, and now we're in the month of November, and he's been doing it for us.

Q. How has Joba looked to you coming out of the bullpen this post-season?
JOE GIRARDI: He's looked pretty good. I know he's given up some hits per innings, but he's thrown the ball pretty good for us. He got three big outs for us last night, top of the order. To go through the order is not easy to do against the Phillies or any club for that matter. He's throwing the ball pretty well.

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