As seen on FS Wisconsin:
Was he pleasantly surprised to see the Diamondbacks pitching to Prince Fielder?
Well I don't know. It's always a discussion whether you're going to walk somebody to put an extra runner on base to get to that next guy. We have those conversations all the time when you go in and face a St. Louis and "do you walk Pujols?" He's got all those guys hitting behind him and what do you do? Early in the game you pitch to him. Late in the game, what do you do? They're tough calls. They're easy to second guess and afterward you can say "Oh, why's he pitching to Prince?" but those decisions are not easy when you have to make them before his at bat instead of after.
On getting key hits from the bottom of the order:
Those were nice. Yuni swung the bat well, Lucroy swung the bat well today, got that bloop in but then hit the bullet to right field his last at bat. We talk about those guys at the bottom of the order: When they're swinging the bat, we're going to be really good offensively. Our two big boys hit well early, Braunie and Prince, and that set it up for us.
How good was Ian Kennedy?
Braunie got to him. We got breaks there too with Braun, not squaring him up but Braun had a great day at the plate. Kennedy was really good again. This guy's having some kind of a year. He commands his fastball as good as anybody in the league, and he pitches off of that. He's got a good changeup, but it's because he commands his fastball so well. Great changeup, and he mixes in enough off speed with the breaking ball that you have to think about it. So with that kind of command, he's so down in the zone all the time and rarely leaves it up, he's a really good pitcher.
Did he consider leaving Yovani Gallardo in to pitch a complete game?
He was in a pitch count where we could've left him out there. We always talk about where we are in the eighth, ninth inning with our two guys out there (Francisco Rodriguez and John Axford in the bullpen), I don't know why you need to push your starters when you've got those two guys out there. That was probably more than worry about Yo and how many pitches he had: I think the next time Yo goes out there we know we didn't push him in this ballgame, and that makes a big difference to me.
Were getting big hits from Braun and Fielder important?
You're right: If your stars don't produce, you're putting a lot of pressure on the other guys to pick it up. That's not how we rolled this year. We rolled because Braunie and Prince did their thing and everyone else fit in well with either getting on base for them or contributing down at the bottom of the order. When we contribute down at the bottom of the order we usually score a lot of runs.
When asked if he tried to point out some of the Brewers' long plate appearances to Yuniesky Betancourt in an effort to convince him to take more pitches:
Those conversations have been happening for years with Yuni. (laughter) It's not the time, when we get in the playoffs to bring that up. I've talked to him about it and it's an ongoing thing, And Yuni's swinging the bat well and when he's aggressive he swings the bat better. So it's always an interesting conversation.
He does come up with some people on and, it's nice to see Yuni when you've got a guy that's going to give him some pitches that are kind of in that zone because you know that first swing is gonna happen. But I like the way he's playing, I like the way he's fielding. He's very confident, and we'll try to keep him that way.
Surprised they didn't walk Fielder?
I don't want to say whether I was surprised or not. I think there are decisions that happen that, sometimes I may feel like I would've done it this way, but really what it comes down to is Gibby (Arizona manager Kirk Gibson) knows his team better than anybody else and, I know we all see afterward what the results are, but nobody knows his team better than he does. And if that's worked for him this year, that formula has got them to where they are, they've been on a roll, I think he knows what he wants to do and he knows what's worked.
I think this question was about Jerry Hairston being fired up?
He's been fired up lately. The last few games of the regular season he was fired up also.