Pressure Already Building for Mike Sciosia

During the pregame interview Mike Sciosia was already having to play defense on the choke question:

Last night the team from the National League that finished with the best record in that league was eliminated. Lou Piniella sort of lamented the fact that during those three games his team did not play anything like the team that had played through the regular season. You said yesterday that the team that you guys have been hasn't shown up yet. Do you have any theories about why things like that happen when September turns to October?

MIKE SCIOSCIA: Well, first of all, we're not getting eliminated tonight, so I'm not going to answer that question. And we'll talk about that if it comes up, because we're not going to talk about it now.

I mean more the trend of the play being different?

MIKE SCIOSCIA: We're not getting eliminated tonight, and we'll talk about it at some point.

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Pregame Notes

There is good news coming from the press conference: Beckett is definitely going to start game 3 and he is near 100%. John Farrell told Tito, “this is not a guy that’s hurt,” after his bullpen session.

Tito said Mike Lowell was not any worse off than yesterday so he is available to pinch hit.

Mike Scioscia showed how important this game is for the Angels when he said, "we need to win tonight, there is no mistake." Not much confidence in his team to come back if they get down 2-0.

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