Both offenses got shut down. |
But that's for the higher-ups to take care of. |
But the thing that came together for us was, No. 1, we had a legitimate No. 1 closer in Eck. Secondly, we had a real good team. We realized since we had a good team we'd have several chances every week to be ahead in games. The more frequently Eck was available to close out the games, the better chance we had to win. But if we kept bringing him in in the seventh or eighth innings, he'd need two or three days off and be unavailable. The next two or three days we'd have to use somebody who wasn't a closer. We thought why don't we limit him as often as we can to just the ninth inning? That way he'd be available for just about every win opportunity. |
But tonight I'm going to take a little personal tour. It was a very emotional day. |
But you separate it because it's not the most important thing, just the hardest. The reason you want to win the division is so you can play in October, get to and win the World Series. That's a different kind of challenge. |
By definition, the teams that play the best are the teams that get here. It's always been true. It's not always about the teams with the best talent. It's about who plays best. And we've both played the best. |
By Friday, you can add a left-hander if you want. It's just a question of, we definitely need a right-hander more. We can replace him with another left-hander Friday. I told [Flores], if we were playing Cincinnati this weekend, we couldn't make the move. |
Changing the makeup of your club, that's just routine with free agency and stuff. |
Depends on the game, depends on the situation. I think he's getting closer to what he is. Does that mean we would hesitate to use him? Probably not. Does it mean it would be nice to keep him moving in a positive direction? Yes. |
Depends on your memory. My memory is not at all about the World Series and his base running. It's about how he pitched in Game 7 of the [2004] NLCS, how he pitched in Game 4 of the [2004] Division Series. |
Did we give it our best shot? I think we did. We got into this thing to win the World Series, so it's a disappointment. |
Each guy got important outs to get us to the finish line. |
Early on without Lance Berkman, that really stretched their lineup, and then after Berkman got back in the lineup and Morgan got hot ... I think they are very much like last year, |
Eckstein -- what's new. He's been playing so well. |
Eckstein is playing so well, it's almost in the category of, what's new? |