“Q: The five guys in the infield, what’s the inspiration for that? Have you done it before? I can’t remember seeing it many times in all the years I’ve covered baseball.
JOE MADDON: Of course everything in the minor leagues. You do everything in the minor leagues. We’ve done it earlier this year in Seattle with some success. We got out of an inning and eventually won a game. We were non successful against the White Sox. Ramirez hit a line drive to right field to beat us.
You have Grant in the game, who is not necessarily a ground ball pitcher. If that’s going to occur you’d rather have Chad Bradford available or J.P. in the game, more of a ground ball type. But nevertheless you still have to take your chances right there. We’ve talked about it. We’ve worked on it. Zobrist being in the game we had legitimate infielders there. We got the ground ball.
If it’s hit in a firm manner, we’re in pretty good shape right there. It’s just unfortunate the way it came out. We talked about it, we worked on it and we did it.”
Tom Hallion (1st Base Umpire):
“Q: If you can explain what you saw on the play, the play on first?
TOM HALLION: Sure. The ball down the first base line, and I came around, close, bang bang play, and I tried to get the best angle on it. And it wound up being a great play by Jamie and Howard. And again, I really didn’t get a sound to be able to judge. It winds up being a great play. And looking at a replay here, they just got him.
So kudos for them, because they made a great play.”
