When you play against a team that has really good pitching, or any pitcher having a hot start, you have to create some ways to win a game. I'm not worried about how it looks or what people say. That's just the way it is. If you just go up there and take your at-bats with someone really nasty, you're probably going to end up on the short end of the stick. |
When you've got a team that's been winning for a long time and knows what they're doing and knows how to go about their business, you don't have to say a lot. If you're trying to encourage people to bear down and take advantage of the opportunities and stuff, I'm a little more vocal this spring than I normally would be. |
Whoever's in that fifth spot probably, most likely will be a younger guy, not a lot of experience. |
Would they do fine (in the majors)? Yeah. Are they going to wipe out the American League? No, that's not going to happen. |
You always cringe when you're a manager when that happens to a young player. He's such a respectful young man; he's such a polite kid. He doesn't want to say no to anybody. I think that's where an organization steps in and protects him a little bit. |
You can definitely make them better. A couple of guys have gotten better already. You stay on top of them, you harp on it, you make them aware of it. You try to give them so much confidence that they want when they go out there, they want the ball hit to them. |
You can tell he's a team player. I mean, he was helping out at every possible place without any fanfare. |
You could see there was some discomfort there. You could tell by the look on his face. |
You don't find many arms like that. Those are extra-special arms, not ordinary-prospect arms. |
You get in a catch-22. A club like ours that needs to get re-established -- we have to win every one we have a shot to win. But I'm not going to do that at the expense of hurting our pitchers, because in the long run it will blow up in our face. |
You give a regular Yankees lineup those opportunities and you're gonna get your brains beat out. You're supposed to give a team 27 outs, and we give them 31 or 32. I'll talk about that (today). |
You gotta look at the other side of the coin. We got the (balls) up and had 11 runs or something and held them to three, then obviously, your pitching had to do a pretty decent job today. |
You might not see that for three months, Cleveland get shut out. That's how good they are. You have to enjoy this one. |
You want your starting pitching to give you a chance to win games. Certainly they've done more than that in this stretch. |
You're going to see two real deals. Whichever one walks the fewest will probably win the game. |