That one will stay real close to me, ... I remember that one like it was yesterday just because of being so young. It was a special moment in my career. |
that was all that was talked about — their starters that they had and how good they were. |
That wasn't the reason I was so bad. |
That's kind of what we thought: we'd end up playing them. . . . I still want those guys to do good. |
That's the bad thing about being a starting pitcher. You have to sit on that for four days. It's been a while since I had an outing like that, actually a long, long time (1996). |
The bottom line is that I was terrible. I'm not going to use that as an excuse. |
The hardest part was getting my leg up the day that I pitched because of the swelling and stuff, ... I was able to do that (Friday), so I feel a lot better. There's no concern at all. I really wasn't concerned on making my start. I'll be fine for my start. |
The main thing is that it's all happened so fast, ... When I signed here, it was to try to help the organization win a playoff series. I know when Roger signed, it was like: 'O.K. We might have a chance to get to the World Series with this staff.' It's just amazing. |
There's been several times that I thought this would be my last start, but we've been able to get through it, ... Nothing ever where I didn't think I'd be able to pitch, but just, man, I might need to give it a few, give it a start or two. I had to confide in the trainers and confide in the doctors when they'd say, 'We think you're good to go,' and, 'Keep working through it.' |
There's no doubt. The elbow hasn't allowed me to over-pitch. It's helped me be more consistent. If I was healthy, I'd probably get stupid and rare back and just try to throw hard sometimes. |
These guys have a good team, and they have a very good lineup also. They'll battle you for at-bats and won't swing at a whole lot of bad pitches. |
They battled me pretty hard, ... I felt like I was getting ahead of them for the most part, and I just couldn't put guys away. It seemed like I was in trouble every inning [with] baserunners. It was a tough game. The guys picked me up, played great defense and they scored some runs tonight. |
They're for real. There's no doubt about that. |
They've got a great lineup, |
They've got some horses over there, and it's no different than us. It's going to be a battle. It's going to be a tough series. |