home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ASTROS v CARDINALS


October 14, 2004


Morgan Ensberg


ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Game Two

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Morgan Ensberg.

Q. Once again, you had several opportunities, your teammates had several opportunities to break it open and left runners on base. How frustrating is it for you?

MORGAN ENSBERG: Well, I mean, we got to really look at the exact situations. When those runners were left on -- I'm a guy that looks at perspective and so forth. Over, you know, a longer period of time, those runs are going to be hit in. If you just happen to be in a spot when, you know, you're not really doing it right then, you try really not to read into that too much. You try to take the overall -- just you try to step back and look at it from a grander picture. Unfortunately, these games are more important, so it is a little bit disappointing. But you can't really put it on yourself too hard.

Q. You guys started these first two games just like Atlanta. You jumped up to leads. How frustrating is it to lose those, especially in that fashion as you did?

MORGAN ENSBERG: Well, I think we've been playing baseball in these first two games kind of how you want to, especially coming in as a visiting team. You come in, want to get ahead early, you want to make them climb and fight back. You know, again, the Cardinals have an outstanding offensive team. It just seems like if you get a guy in scoring position, they're going to have good at-bats. You kind of miss with a pitch, they're going to really capitalize on it. So, again, I mean, we want to make sure that they're still playing catchup, but at the same time we definitely want to make sure that we can hold those leads.

Q. On that play on Womack's ground ball, potential double-play, what happened? Did you double-pump?

MORGAN ENSBERG: We play Womack in the hole. You're just sitting there waiting. JK (Kent) is going to get over there to second base. You throw there. It's not a play where I'm going to all of a sudden want to go to first base or something like that. I think really, leading the runner, meaning Jeff Kent, into that type of thing is a really low-percentage play. So you want to make sure you want to get an out and so forth. But that's what was going on there.

Q. If you had been able to throw when you looked at the base, you would have made the double-play and changed the whole inning?

MORGAN ENSBERG: I don't know if you've got that right -- we positioned Jeff Kent such that it's in the hole.

Q. I understand what you're saying.

MORGAN ENSBERG: Oh, okay.

Q. But to follow on that, it was too late to turn on the double-play. Then two home runs and a hit.

MORGAN ENSBERG: Yes, if we positioned Jeff Kent in a different spot, we can turn a double-play.

Q. How would you assess the stuff that Matt Morris had this evening?

MORGAN ENSBERG: I think my first at-bat, he was real tough to me. Put two balls in great spots, inside corner. I absolutely flailed at a slider. It's difficult for me to assess what's going on when I'm not batting. I have a difficult time because I'm not sure whether it's in or out. I felt we had some good at-bats. But, again, it's kind of the same old story. It seems if you need to make a pitch, he made it. I think he did a good job. He certainly kept their team in it when we definitely had some chances there to put some runs on the board.

Q. Are you surprised at the number of two-out rallies the St. Louis club is having this series?

MORGAN ENSBERG: When you look at how many outs there are in an inning and so forth, you're looking at really it's a question of opportunity each inning. When you have two outs, there's less of an opportunity to score runs only because you only have one more out. They've done an outstanding job with two strikes. I'm not really sure -- excuse me, with two outs. I'm not really sure why that is. They've done a great job of battling in those situations. I think you guys would have a much better idea, looking back at it. I don't think as ball players we look at it so in depth as that. We're really more concentrating in the moment. But they've done a great job with two outs.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about, take us into the clubhouse, amongst you and your teammates down 2-0, but knowing you're going home, you have your two big horses coming up in Game 3 and 4.

MORGAN ENSBERG: Again, kind of what we alluded to a little bit earlier, we had gotten ahead in these games and we felt pretty good about that. We did not score runs, you know, later in the game and we kind of gave up some runs. When we go home, we feel really good and confident with how we play at home. And so, you know, you certainly don't want to leave this place 0-2. You want to -- obviously, you'd love to be 2-0 and you'd much rather split. But, again, we've played very well at home. I think we feel really confident at home. In the clubhouse it's not a situation where everybody's down and moping around as if we can't do it. We did some very good things in both of these games and put some runs up on the board and we really, I think, did a good job against their starters and against their relievers. So I don't think we feel intimidated or down whatsoever. I think we're just in a bad spot. Of course we've been playing four months in a bad spot, so we're in very familiar area.

End of FastScripts...

About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297