How would you assess Anthony's outing tonight?

TONY LA RUSSA: Well, four innings, two runs, I thought he handled himself very well.

It's the first time your bullpen has been roughed up in the postseason, are you confident on that they will be able to respond?

TONY LA RUSSA: Yeah, I think everything they had, balls that were hit they were capable of doing better things with. It was a rough night, especially the two right-handers, they are kicking themselves and beating themselves up in the clubhouse. But they are both capable of doing things differently to get better results.

Two quick questions for you: No. 1, what went into your decision about having your right-handed relievers pitch to Delgado in both of those situations in the fifth and sixth?

TONY LA RUSSA: You mean instead of using one of our left-handers?

Instead of going earlier to Flores or Johnson.

TONY LA RUSSA: Both of those right-handers have been effective against left-hand hitters and that's a lot of game to pitch. We were hoping to get a couple innings each from those guys to kind of piece together the rest of it. We just didn't make good pitches. They can get all of those guys out making good pitches.

Have you seen enough of Beltrán over these couple of postseasons that he's played against you?

TONY LA RUSSA: Well, same thing. He's a dangerous guy. You make pitches, throw the ball down the middle to our guys, we're going to have the same kind of success. We've made mistakes, he's a very good hitter and he takes advantage.

How impressive is Delgado in that you've pitched him away in this series so much and he's a big power hitter, is able to stay back and instead of trying to pull that ball, hit it to the opposite field?

TONY LA RUSSA: We watched, he hit the Dodgers the same way. A couple hits in this series, the ball has supposed to be in, and the guys have just gotten out of their deliveries and got the ball away. We've got to try to move the ball around because he's too good to go to one area.

With what Reyes did, were you looking at him to go five innings or was this a two times through their lineup and you were gonna pull him? What were you looking from him?

TONY LA RUSSA: Just watching the game. Realize it's a big challenge for him, watched him and thought he handled himself well, thought he had a chance to score a run in that inning but we weren't going to push him very much past that anyway.

Edmonds okay or Taguchi pinch-hit to get him in the game?

TONY LA RUSSA: He got a little sore chasing that one ball. He did get sore in one of those last chases that he made. Hopefully he'll be okay tomorrow.

To kind of follow up the previous question, if Anthony's spot doesn't come up there, would you have liked to get a little bit more or he was at the point it's time to get him?

TONY LA RUSSA: If Anthony's spot had come up I would have pitched Flores with a left-hand inning coming up, we wanted somebody to give us a couple innings, and that was Thompson.

Just away from the game, but can you talk about Josh Kinney, just the importance that he's had since he's come up and obviously the innings that he's given you in the postseason?

TONY LA RUSSA: Well, he's become a big part of our bullpen, he's come up through our system. He got here in kind of a funny way, but a couple clubs that he's pitched for, the raves have been about the movement, different type of pitches, the way he competes and we've seen for ourselves, he's handled himself great with very little experience.

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Going into obviously the important Game 5 tomorrow with both starting pitchers having already started on three days' rest this time and having faced each other's lineup, what do you anticipate?

TONY LA RUSSA: Well, you're talking about two experienced lineups, so you know, both lineups are going to be making adjustments, the pitchers are going to adjust to the adjustments. It will be fascinating to watch. You've got two veteran pitchers and two lineups that have a good idea of what to do at the plate. So I think everybody will be trying to do something different than they did last time because last time was a 2-0 game.