[Jim] and I feel we have unfinished business, |
A lot of times what you see in the spring can change radically in the season. It can go from good to bad or bad to good. So I'm not too interested, I don't concern myself with their performance in the spring. |
Actually, we want them all to throw 100 mph on the first day. We want to teach them how to throw from both sides, too. I think that would help the team, a bunch of ambidextrous pitchers. |
Athletes can often undermine themselves with too much thinking. That might be one thing that happened to Oliver last year. |
But maybe the action on Derek's pitches trumps that, |
But maybe the action on Derek's pitches trumps that. |
Good hitters want to extend their arms, they want to take away the inside of the plate and look middle-to-away. If a pitcher can establish the inside of the plate, it keeps a hitter honest. |
He allows me to have my own program and supports me and makes me feel like I am appreciated and respected. |
He looked really good. I was quite surprised that he looked so good. It was a really nice delivery. |
He's a lot more than I expected him to be. He's not as refined as he might be -- or is going to be -- but that's my impression. |
He's consistent and feels very good about it. His balance is good. He's a lot better than the films I saw from last year. I think he'll pitch well. |
He's doing fine. But we're going to continue to be cautious. |
He's had confidence before and he's had success before. It's in the package. That's what it is all about, for individual players to realize that who they are is good enough. Most of the problems are caused when a player thinks he has to do more or be radically different than what his talents are in order to succeed. In most cases, that's not the case. They just need to be themselves and trust that. |
He's shown significant improvement. He's in the top few guys in terms of tidying up his delivery. |
His breaking ball, change-up and fastball are sharp. His command is good. So I'm pleased. That's what you want more than anything, that they execute what they're trying to do and he was doing it fairly well. There were three hits that accounted for his runs -- two doubles and a homer. Of the three, only one was a little bit of a mistake. |