When it comes to Roger Clemens, I have to be optimistic. |
when we hadn't played some of these teams yet, sometimes those infielders who hadn't seen him didn't know how fast he was. So they'd take their time, and next thing they knew, he was a step ahead of them [on the throw]. You'd see them out there, just shaking their heads. |
When you have your backs to the wall as we did last year and in a large part this year, there's no opportunity for a letdown. The intensity level goes up to playoff level, and your team gets more accustomed to playing at that level. |
When you miss that time, it's obviously difficult to get your swing back. It's going to take time. |
When you sign a player, you hope he gets to the big leagues with you, but if not, you hope he gets to the big leagues with someone else. |
When you've been teammates that long, you're going to go through some ups and downs. They've gone through some down times. |
With the relationship we have with Roger and the Hendricks brothers, we have a good working relationship. Roger will be a part of this organization when his career is over. It's all positive. The situation is well-known. We don't have to put on any campaign for Roger to come back. He knows what we're all about. He's very comfortable in this environment and we have a chance to win. |
Without the Express players we have now, there's no way we'd be where we are now, ... To me, your Triple-A and Double-A teams are your research and development. They're they guys who hopefully sustain your organization. |
Yesterday he came to the ballpark and felt very, very good. Better than expected. He let it loose in all of his at-bats. |
You can't force a guy to stay there. But also, you want to try to do what's in the best interests of the club. You need a guy who can hit the ball out of the ballpark, not necessarily a guy who can hit a single. But it's a tough deal, being in the Minor Leagues, facing young guys that are out to get you. |
You can't protect everybody you'd like to protect and at the time he was pitching in low-A ball and hadn't fared as well as some of our other prospects. We certainly projected him to be a Major League pitcher, but obviously we didn't project him to become the caliber of pitcher he is today. |
You close the roof, you get a lot of continuity with the conditions. You don't have issues that come up that could affect you. There's a comfort level that our players have. We play with it closed most of the time, anyway. Players are creatures of habit -- you don't want to start changing things dramatically once you get in the playoffs. |
You fans have been so important to us and everything we've done this year, ... We love you, fans. |
You have to have parameters you're comfortable working with. We have those parameters. We know where we feel we can take our budget, beyond what it is already and do what we need to do to still sustain the club and not put ourselves too much into a financial hole. |