Outstanding. He got out of some jams. |
Outstanding. His velocity is back up there, around 94 (mph), and he seemed to add and subtract better on his breaking ball today. |
Over the last probably three weeks to a month, we've actually had kind of a recipe, when guys are available that day, to go to. When you have that and you're having success and you know those are going to be your innings and your roles, you continue to have success. |
Randy seems to have come in here with a different attitude this year. He's thrown the ball well both times he's been out there and today was as good as I've seen him throw. |
Royce has been unbelievable as of late. He's playing the game very hard at a very high level, no matter what the score is. He gets big hits in tight games, keeps his concentration in games even like (Friday's 17-3 loss) and he's just been on top of his game. |
Russ is going to be fine. My feeling is that when you've been around long enough, every now and then you are going to have a bad year. |
Russ just lost it in a hurry. He threw the ball great for three innings and then lost his command. He wasn't as crisp in the strike zone. |
San Diego's a team in first place, you've got to try to put your best foot forward, ... Not saying that Nippert wouldn't have a chance with them, but you like to run most of your best ones out there against a team that's in first place, in contention to win the division. |
Since he's come back, he's made every play possible -- balls up the middle, diving plays deep in the hole. |
So we want to be careful with him. |
Some guys are old-school, some guys aren't. He's certainly not the only guy in the league who does it, either. |
Sometimes during games, I'll look over at him after somebody does a particular thing, and he'll just shake his head and laugh because it's gone back and forth so many times. He'll say, 'OK, let's see how we feel about it the next day.' He'll come in and his percentage changed a bit, mine's changed a bit and it's been that way for the past 10 days. |
Sometimes you deserve to be here, and sometimes you play your way out of here. He was a guy who deserved to be here. He just got caught in numbers game. So it was nice to reward him, and it gives us an added arm who can pitch in multiple situations out there. |
Sometimes you just have a disappointing year. I'm not saying it's disappointing in our eye, so to speak. I just think he expected more out of himself. |
Sometimes you just need to send them down to give them a blow mentally, because at the big league level, it can grind on you. You go out there -- it's all about results, period. It's nice once you get to the big leagues, but there isn't any grace period where you get to struggle for a while. It's about results right now, and if you don't do it, there are others that will take your place. |