Tagged: NLCS

Keeping our heads up

Kempblog.jpgWhen I left the stadium, some of my friends, we talked a little bit about the game, not too much. It’s good to talk about it. A little surprised, a little shocked. Grabbed something to eat at some diner near the hotel. It took a little while to fall asleep. I was in shock more than anything. It was like, I couldn’t believe it, did that really happen? We’ve been on the other side before, so we know how it feels to lose and we know how it feels to win.

Joe had a meeting before we went out to the field and just told us to take it one game at a time. You got to win one to win two, got to win two to win three. It’s a one-game series for us, that’s how we have to think. We get back home, I like our chances, I like the way we play there.

Our mood is good, man. I’m going to check out a haunted house tonight, supposed to be pretty scary. Can’t sit in the room all night and just think about last night’s game. Sleep in a little bit tomorrow, get some food, chill out. Same routine, nothing’s going to change.  Everybody has faith in us. My friends tell me to keep your head up. This is the right team to come back from 3 to 1. I’m good. I’d be way more looser if it was 2-2 going into tomorrow, because we hit Cole pretty good the first time we played him. But this is just something we have to deal with and fight through it.

Time to get down to business

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It’s time to play baseball. We had four days off to get our legs under us. We were still working hard, lifting weights, taking batting practice in the cage, watching video. Everything we had to do to prepare for the games. We’re excited and ready to go. Tomorrow is another big day, we’ve got four tough pitchers to face, and hopefully we’ll have the same approach and same outcome as when we faced the Cardinals.

Once we got home, I’ve been hanging out with a friend, he’s an R&B singer – Tank – I’m sure everybody knows who he is. We kind of celebrated, had some good seafood and caught a Clippers game with my people, and got to see Blake Griffin play for the first time and I was excited about that. Baron Davis and Rasual Butler were excited for us. Baron Davis comes to a lot of our games and he loves baseball and he told me it’s time for us to win a championship. Other than that, just been chillin’ out and letting my body rest. I feel good, no flu for me like some of the guys and I’m staying away from everybody, washing my hands a million times. No shaking hands, just a little tap.

I’m looking forward to playing back in our home. We believe it really is a home-field advantage. It’s tough playing in Philly but it’s tough for a visiting team playing here. Our fans are rowdy and with white towels they’ll be waving. I hope they’ll be more crazy and loud than when we played St. Louis. The fans are definitely a factor. When you have great fans, it makes you more confident. I’m not going to say it scares the other team, but maybe it’s a little rattling with all the noise. We’ll see how that works.

Popping champagne

101010.jpgWe came in as underdogs and had to prove everybody wrong. And that was a really good team we had to beat. They sent three great pitchers out there. And we proved we can beat No. 1 starters. We’re feeling really good about ourselves right now and we got to take it to the next round.

Tonight it looks like Manny’s gotten going. He looks good at the plate, he’s driving in runs. When you see that, you know we’re going to have a good game. I think we’re better this year than last year. Like me, I didn’t have a good game at the plate. But ‘Dre picked me up and Manny picked me up. We’re a better team this year because we’ve got guys to pick up other guys.

People say we don’t have real good pitching. I don’t know, our pitching was pretty good in this series. And Raffy, he brought his A game. So it’s a whole different team than last year. That’s why we’ve been talking since the beginning of the year that we expect big things.

So we’re popping champagne in the clubhouse tonight, but we still have a long road, we’ve still got eight games to win. We’re going crazy in here right now and I hope our fans are going crazy, popping champagne and waving the towels and I hope they’re ready to go to the stadium Thursday, because our fans are one of the big reasons why it’s so hard for other teams to come to L.A. and play the Dodgers.