Oct. 11 Don Mattingly postgame interview

Q. If you would start a little bit of your review of Zack tonight and how he pitched?

DON MATTINGLY: Zack was really good, and kind of probably could have kept going, really, but coming around into the middle of that order right there at that time. He was really good tonight. He had that ‑‑ the pitcher gets away from him, then we walk Carpenter there. And Carlos is always ‑‑ he's a tough out for us.

Q. Andre is obviously a really good fielder. Did you feel like on that double maybe just a little bit of rust that he hasn't been in the field a while, that he just didn't get to that ball? What was your take on that?

DON MATTINGLY: Usually when a guy jumps at a ball at the wall and runs into it at the same time, you don't really call that rust. Guy hits a good ‑‑ if he catches it, it's a great play. I don't think you can find any fault with him not catching that.

Q. Can you talk about the decision to take Adrian out of the game when you did for the pinch‑runner, especially given that he didn't get the chance to steal?

DON MATTINGLY: Well, it's one of those that you've got to shoot your bullet when you get a chance. If we don't use him there and the next guy hits a ball in the gap and he doesn't score and we don't score there, we're going to say why didn't you use Dee? So it was our opportunity to run him. Obviously, Yasiel swung early, and it didn't work out for us. But it's still a situation that I don't think we would ‑‑ you get a guy on in that inning, and you have to take a shot at scoring a run.

 Q. The replay showed on the play at the plate with Mark Ellis coming in that it didn't look like Yadier got the tag on him. Did you look at the replay or did anybody on your staff look at that replay and what did you see?

DON MATTINGLY: I didn't hear anything about it until we were walking down here. It looks like he's out by ‑‑ Yadier's out in front of the plate. The ball beats him. Holds on to the ball. Obviously, I guess, if we get replay or whatever something like that, but that's one of those that's hard to even argue that he didn't tag him, you know?

Q. Was the one for ten with runners in scoring position more of what maybe you guys weren't doing or more of what the Cardinals pitcher were doing effectively tonight?

DON MATTINGLY: Well, I was going to give those guys credit. I mean we're down to the final four and you're looking at two pretty good teams and played a pretty good game tonight with a lot of good pitching. There were a lot of big outs that both teams got tonight. Our pitching was really good. Theirs was good.

We had a couple opportunities to get a run in and we didn't do it. If the rest of the series is like this game, it should be a pretty good one.

Q. Back on the decision to take Gonzalez out. Does the way things played out and Ramirez is twice walked in situations, would that make you less likely to make that same decision down the road?

DON MATTINGLY: I don't think so. That's what we really brought Dee on the club for because he gives you a chance every night to steal a bag and win a game. We're trying to win a game. We can look back on every decision. If it doesn't work, you can decide to go the other way. But we're trying to win a game tonight, and that's why we used Dee.

Q. Was Hanley at all limited after he got hit by the pitch, and did that play any impact into deciding to bunt later in the game?

DON MATTINGLY: No, I mean, Hanley seemed like he was fine. I know he got hit pretty good, but, again, we're trying to get one run. We've got to put ourselves in a chance to score a run. So Hanley the way he felt had nothing to do with anything.

Q. With Kenley, the idea was to save him for a save situation and it just never came about that way?

DON MATTINGLY:  That's pretty much what happens with the closer. We're not going to use him really early. There it's just that kind of game that you're going to end up trying to stop it there. Maybe we get another inning out of him, depending on what happens, and go from there.