Lou, it seemed the tone was set
early with Hill throwing a lot of pitches and
giving up the home run in the first inning.
LOU PINIELLA: Yeah, that game from the
first inning on seemed like they took control of it.
Leadoff home run. We had a lot of opportunities,
but look, I want to congratulate the Arizona team.
They played really well.
They have a good ball club with good
pitching, and I wish them well in their endeavors in
this next round. They really played well, and they
should feel good about what they did.
We're disappointed, but at the same time,
I'm really proud of our players. We got off to a
slow start this year, put together a good run,
culminated in getting in the postseason.
This is just the start, fellas. We're going to
get better. This is just a start. It is disappointing,
but, you know, no matter how far you go up the
ladder in baseball you don't win a World Series,
you're going to find disappointment somewhere
along the way.
Around this uncharacteristic plate
discipline tonight for Aramis, could you tell us
about his series?
PINIELLA: He struggled with the
series, but we didn't do much offensively. What
did we score, six runs in the three games? Hard to
win that way. I talked about when this series started that
we had to hit their pitchers. To me, that was the
key.
And for all practical purposes, we didn't do
as good a job as we could have or should have.
We had numerous opportunities tonight.
Numerous. And I don't know how many double
plays we hit into, but quite a few. We just didn't get
the big hit when we needed it. What can I say?
Lou, would you talk about the role of
Jose Valverde in the series, and would you
agree with the assessment --
PINIELLA: I'll tell you what, you want
to talk about their team? Start talking about their
shortstop, what a job he did. The Drew kid. He
made some great plays, hit some home runs.
What did he hit over .500 in this playoff? Pretty
impressive.
And their closer, he's good. He's good, he
really is. I mean, he gets the ball and I think he
basically threw nothing about fastballs. But they're
located well and they're probably hard to pick up.
He's had success, I can see why.
Lou, it always hurts to
lose obviously. Is there any extra frustration when the
team didn't play as well as they are capable of
playing?
PINIELLA: Well, when you don't
score runs and you leave a lot of people on, it
looks lackluster, but it wasn't. These guys gave
effort, they really did. They wanted to get it done.
They caught us for three games, but we just didn't
swing the bats.
Our starting pitching outside of the
Zambrano game wasn't really good. So look, just
tip your hats to them and wish them well. I'm
talking about the Arizona team. We'll regroup. We
made some nice strides this year with this team
and we'll do some things over the winter with this
team and we'll be right back this spring to get
better and better. That's the way I look at it.
Did this series kind of remind you of
some of the stretches that you guys had during
the season where it just wasn't offensively
happening for you?
PINIELLA: Well, we've had some
spells this summer where we've had a week or 10
days where it was hard scoring runs, and then
we've had the other kind. They just caught us
cold. But, again, let's give their pitching credit, too.
Our team tried. We just didn't get it done, and
that's really the end of the story.
But I'm proud of our guys, I really am. I
told them that. I told them to have a nice, safe
winter and we'll reconvene next spring and take
this thing further, and that's really the bottom line.
The people here in Chicago, I've enjoyed
working with you all. Have a wonderful winter,
OK? You're good people. Thanks.