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HR: CLE: G. Sizemore (1). NYY: A. Rodriguez (1), B. Abreu (1), R. Cano (2).
Recapping the Game in Quotes
Q. You stuck with your guns, and evidently you know your personnel better than anyone. The way things worked out with Byrd, getting five innings out of him. You went to your bullpen again, could you just explain the whole thought process and everything.
ERIC WEDGE: Well, we talked about this last night and again earlier today. It was Paul Byrd all the way for us. I mean, he was our Game 4 starter. And deservingly so; he won 15 games. I thought what he did today is he controlled the baseball game. He was aggressive, he worked ahead. He made pitches when he had to. You know, defensively we made a few big plays. The big double-play was something that helped us out. But I just like the way he composed himself. I liked his rhythm and tempo, and as you mentioned, the bullpen did a great job. It was great to see Borowski finish it off. Grady hitting the leadoff homer. You know, Victor with the two-out RBI with the bases loaded, separated a little bit, so it was a good baseball game.
Q. What's going through your mind in the early innings there as the Yankees are piling guys on bases? Blake made a great play to save you a run and Martinez made a great play down the line probably saving you another.
PAUL BYRD: I feel the temptation in those moments to try and strike somebody out. That's usually when I leave the ball over the middle of the plate, just trying to muscle it. So just trying to keep making the pitches, cutters, back door, and got a few outs on changeups. But they really put the pressure on early. They have amazing fans here in New York. I think another one of my goals was to keep their fans out of the game. I didn't want to start walking people and hearing the crowd go crazy with each ball, things like that. So the fact that we were able to put up a six-run, you know, first couple innings on them where we're up 6-1, I thought was huge.
Q. Joe, what happened to Wang?
JOE TORRE: Well, you know, I wasn't comfortable watching him. It just looked like his stuff was good, just from the velocity he looked like he was throwing the ball hard. But he got hurt balls up. Usually you tell early with him. If he can get the ball down. They start beating it into the ground. But they didn't hit a lot of groundballs.
Q. Could you just describe some of your emotions watching that ninth inning, with all that's gone on this season, and just these last couple days as well?
JOE TORRE: Well, I bury myself in my players. And I just finished telling them how proud I am of what they did. I mean, they dug themselves out of a hole. They learned how to be a team. They did a lot of very positive things. I know we all get judged on how it ends up, but there's so much that goes on between start and the finale that sometimes you forget about it because you get caught up in the result. This ballclub, they have a great future. The young kids who came down the pike here, it's something different for the Yankees. You know, there's no question that the quality, not only the ability, but the quality of the people is very impressive. |
