Better late than never…
His reaction to the feedback from his comments yesterday regarding the New York Mets:
“I apologize to Jerry Manuel and to all the other managers. I don’t blame them; they don’t want to get stepped on. I think it’s the wrong thing to do and I apologize. It certainly wasn’t my intention to do that.
I’m closing the door on managing the Mets and probably everybody else. Because I don’t want to mislead anybody. When I leave here…I’m anticipating that will be my last game as manager. I didn’t have any anticipation that I’m going to manage anywhere else. But I don’t want to shut any doors to what possibly could be the next phase of my professional life.
I would doubt very seriously that there would be anything that would entice me to manage again. As I’ve said a number of times, this is pretty good duty out here. It’s pretty good duty. This weather, this ballpark, the Dodgers which have been a storied franchise. I know right there are a lot of questions about what’s going on…but it’s still a pretty darn good place to be.”
On his interest level in writing a book about his time with the Dodgers:
“No. The New York thing was much different…the roller coaster ride and all that stuff. And when I first started there and was there three years like I am here, I had no interest in writing a book. Once you spend as much time as I did there and had excitement from winning and depression about losing, and not really wanting to talk about it, because it wasn’t finished yet. And I still wouldn’t have written the book unless Tom [Verducci] had come up to me and asked if I had any interest in the kind of book he wanted to do. But no, I have no interest in writing a book [about the Dodgers].”
On the possibility of writing a book with LA Times beat writer Dylan Hernandez:
Torre jokingly responded, “It would have to be a children’s book if [Hernandez] was going to do it.”
On the Dodgers interest level in playing the role of spoiler:
“I hope so, because it’s really all that’s left for us. It’s more, have an impact on a pennant race. In our division, we’re pretty lucky, because we have three of them [contending teams]. If I’m sitting in one of those other dugouts or clubhouses now, in San Francisco or Colorado, I’m hoping that we’re going to play like hell to beat [the Padres]. And that’s only fair to do. And that’s the way we’ve arranged our pitching. The other day, being back 6-1, we certainly didn’t throw in the towel in that game and I was proud of that. But it is tougher to play this time of year, and that’s really the only thing that gets your blood boiling a little bit. That’s what the game is supposed to be.”
On which players Torre is considering to let manage at the end of the season:
“I’m considering Russell [Martin]. Where I normally favor the older guys, I may be thinking more of the younger guys. I’ve thrown it out to them. Ausmus maybe, but he’s going to catch the last game. That’s going to be his swan song…we’re going to be swaning together.”
Post-Game Comments from Torre, Billingsley, Ellis and Blake
Here’s the feedback after tonight’s 6-0 loss to the Padres (particularly good stuff from Casey Blake). Additionally, earlier this evening, the Dodgers were officially eliminated from playoff contention.
Joe Torre
On Clayton Richard’s complete game shutout:
“It just looked so easy for him. We didn’t do a whole lot of damage. We just couldn’t get anything going. Up until that last inning, we didn’t really have a threat. You have to give him credit, he works fast, he’s very aggressive in the strike zone and he certainly pitched well tonight.”
On being eliminated from the playoffs:
“We didn’t play well enough to be in a pennant race. We thought in the first half that we would be able to contend. Unfortunately the second half started off badly and we never really recovered from it.”
On Billingsley’s performance:
“It just didn’t look like he had command. He’s been pitching so well, his stuff looked good, but he just wasn’t able to locate. It sounds simple, and that’s probably a simple explanation, but as I said, I thought his stiff was good, but he just didn’t get the ball where he wanted to. Plus we put pressure on him. We don’t score, they score a couple of runs and you try and be perfect. I think a lot of the pitchers have had to deal with a lot of that this year.”
Chad Billingsley
On his performance in tonight’s game:
“I just didn’t get the job done today. I was battling those two innings and couldn’t find a way to get out of it. I’ve just got to get ready for the next start.”
A.J. Ellis
On Chad Billingsley’s performance:
“They capitalized when we put their runners on base. The walk or a hit by pitch, they capitalized on it. When he was ahead in the count and throwing strikes, he was dominant as he normally is, putting guys away. When you put guys on base it makes it that much harder on you.”
Casey Blake
On being officially eliminated from the playoffs:
“In order to be a championship team, obviously you’ve got to be playing well, but you’ve got to have a lot of things go your way. It seems like neither of those happened for us. Injuries didn’t help anything: Losing Manny, losing [Furcal], Padilla, just go down the line. Andre for an extended period of time. I was out five games and that really killed us [laughter]. Every team goes through adversity like that. It’s disappointing. You feel like a failure. We’re not embarrassed, it’s just really disappointing for all the expectations and hope you have. You make it to the playoffs a couple of years in a row and you just expect to do it. When it doesn’t happen, it’s really, really tough to take.”