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NL DIVISION SERIES: DIAMONDBACKS v BREWERS

October 2, 2011

Ron Roenicke

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN: Game Two

DIAMONDBACKS Â– 4
BREWERS - 9

Q. Ron, give us your assessment of Zack today?
RON ROENICKE: I thought Zack threw the ball well. I thought he made a bad pitch to Upton for the homer. The other two homers, not that bad of pitches. They did a nice job of hitting there.
But he threw the ball well overall. I know he gave up four runs, but I was happy with the way he threw.

Q. Could you tell anything different from the short rest, like you guys got him out fairly quick, after they tied it. Was he getting tired?
RON ROENICKE: I don't know if he was getting tired or not. 80-whatever pitches he had. We weren't going to push him much more than that, anyway.
If he had been cruising through and he got through five innings with 70 pitches, thought he was throwing the ball real well, we probably would have let him go back out another inning.
It certainly wasn't his best game, but I thought he threw well. I thought he battled real well. And they did a nice job of hitting.

Q. You made a tough call with Hairston at third, but it's been paying off for you guys. Can you talk about his performance so far?
RON ROENICKE: Another real good game for him. Defensively very aggressive, comes and gets balls when they're chopped. Offensively, nice at-bats.
You know, he sees pitches, he's not just up there swinging at everything, but he gives you a nice quality bat. And when it's on the line, you feel really good with him up there.

Q. Is it just coincidence that Greinke is coming up in situations where the squeeze makes sense, and did he execute perfect today?
RON ROENICKE: Great execution, again. He gets in those spots. It's always a tough call for me because I still like him offensively swinging the bat, but he's doing such a good job at the squeeze, that he's in the right spot to do it.
Sometimes you look at your lineups and you have that pitcher after him. If there's not a place to put Luc on, it's a nice play for him.

Q. So many times this year your pitchers have won for you, and low scoring games. Today when your starter went out your offense really picked it up. It must have been nice to see that they kind of took over the game for you today.
RON ROENICKE: Yeah, great to see. Hawk comes in in the 6th, gets a little bit of trouble with the two walks, really makes a nice play in knocking down that line drive, to be really able to get out of that inning.
And then we turn around right after that and explode offensively. Some really good at-bats. Corey, Nyjer, through the bunt by Luc. They did a real nice job there.

Q. What did you say about Braun in the first few games? You watch it almost every night, but it's like he doesn't stop.
RON ROENICKE: No, he doesn't stop. You know, that's a good pitcher they have out there and he really puts quality at-bats together. To get those hits and again Prince comes up, gets the base hit up the middle to drive in a run.
We did some really good things offensively today. That's a type game where you feel like offensively you're going to keep scoring runs and hopefully because of it, it builds the confidence in the whole lineup, because they all came through today.

Q. This game is kind of an ideal demonstration of the strength of your bullpen. You score repeatedly and then four zeroes from your guys.
RON ROENICKE: That's what we've been doing. I thought our relievers were a little off today, especially walking people. We've been really good at that. But they're still able to make pitches when they need to make pitches.
Hawk comes in, walks a couple of guys, and then makes some pitches to get out of it. Makes a nice play to get out of it. And Frankie always does that. If you walk somebody, get somebody on base, he always has a knack of making a big pitch when he needs to make it. And he's done that through his career.

Q. You said earlier today when you intentionally walk a player, you fire up the batter behind them. Do you think that's what happened today in the 6th inning?
RON ROENICKE: Well, I think it certainly can happen. That's more of a walk Kotsay, it's more of a you've got that base there, if you get a ground ball you have a chance to get a double play. You have a side-armer up there with Ziegler. That's the right move to walk him there.
We had a decision where we were thinking maybe to walk Parra and we didn't know if they were going to pinch-hit for Hudson there or not or leave him in the game. We ended up pitching to Parra and got him out. But it was a situation where maybe I could have definitely walked him there.

Q. How big was the strikeout of Parra?
RON ROENICKE: Big strikeout. Yeah, he made some real nice pitches there when he needed to. And like I said, we were thinking if he went ball 1, if he goes ball 2, we're going to walk him and make a decision whether to keep Hudson in and let him hit or get a pinch-hitter in there. It worked out well for us.

Q. If you look at the numbers, it indicates that you obviously would be in the driver's seat statistically. Do you feel you're in that driver's seat?
RON ROENICKE: We certainly feel comfortable going with the first couple of games that we had. I really liked the way we played.
Going into Arizona, they're going to be tough, just like they were tough today. They're not going to slow down. They're going to keep putting the pressure on us. And they did that and that's what I expect from them in the next game. Of course we'd like to win the first two like we have. And the way we played, I liked both games we played.

Q. Just kind of adding to that. You guys fought so hard for home field advantage and now you won both games. You must feel vindicated in the way you guys pushed to get this home field.
RON ROENICKE: I think it's worked out that way. Not that it always will, but it has worked out that way. I'm happy with, again, how we played at home. And, you know, we've got two tough games here coming up at their ballpark. And we have to continue to get after it like we did these two.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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