It regressed a little the last two days from when it was real good. |
It was better than the last one. He spotted the ball exceptionally well and kept the ball down, throwing all of his pitches. |
Janssen has a little bit more velocity and sharper stuff right now. Banks is very usable, this kid is going to be a decent big-league pitcher. |
Once he does start airing it out a little bit he needs down time in between. Sometimes it's a longer road than anybody wants it to be. |
Once he learns to pitch the lower half of the zone with greater consistency, he's going to be a 17-20 game winner. |
Sooner or later, he has got to make the calls. |
The cold has never entered my mind. Ideally, you would like it 80 degrees and sunny out, but you're not going to get that. Obviously, that day would be somewhat of a concern, but is it a concern right now? Not really. |
The only thing that bothered him a little bit is when they had him skip, just to put all the weight on it. That didn't go as well as he was hoping, but everything else was right up to par. ... As he said, 'When am I ever going to skip on the baseball field?' |
The real test will be when we get him on the mound -- and then after his mound exposure, we'll let him field some ground balls, ... We'll let him field bunts down both lines and we'll let him cover first base. ... He's got to be able to get around at least well enough to be able to do those things that are required out of every Major League pitcher. |
There's no use having him throw unless he's close. And if that means early September, it's early September. |
There's not any spots open in that bullpen, but he's got to understand what an integral part of this program he is. I've said to other guys, 'You're ready for the big leagues, but the big leagues aren't ready for you.' Hopefully he finds himself in that spot. |
To be able to say: 'Oh yeah, we knew this year was going to come,' I don't think anybody would go on-line and say that. He just continues to gain steam and he just gets better and better almost every outing. It really has been a pleasure to watch. |
We didn't mix the split in, we're going to wait a couple of outings and let him air out before mixing in the split in outing three or four. We're guarding it with kid gloves right now. |
We have to let him make the calls from now on. It's up to him to accelerate his rate. We want it done right the first time. |
We're hoping to go five innings, and 15-pitch innings to get him up to 75 pitches, |