Larry Rothschild Win Quotations

The only plan is to keep his arm in shape, because he's gone a long way to get it to where it is and we don't want to go backwards. In the middle of a rehab, it's important to keep throwing and keep the looseness in there.

I took the job four years ago with winning in mind, and we haven't accomplished that.

He went through his throwing and we'll see him after he gets the procedure done and go from there.

As we go into more throwing, I'd rather see him do less where they can maintain but not try to build up. I think that's where you run into some problems. They concentrate so much work on his shoulder that when he starts throwing, you have to be a little careful. Throwing is what counts, not how many reps you can do with weights.

I don't want him following somebody in relief at this point in his career. He gets a lot out of stuff early.

When I took the job four years ago, it was with winning in mind, and we haven't accomplished that. So I felt an obligation to ... the organization. I like Chicago. I'm from there, and our kids love being there, and there's no place like Wrigley Field.

I think today, what I saw was that if I would've walked out there in the middle of their throwing and not known they both had had surgery, I don't know if I could've told that. That's a good sign. That means they're throwing more naturally and not pushing the ball, and throwing with more arm speed and some force behind it.

We'll know more when he's not just throwing batting practice the next time out.

I think we're going to a pretty extensive throwing program Friday and see how he reacts on Saturday, and go from there. There's a good chance he'll get on the mound Sunday, but if he feels real good, we might venture that on Friday. But we'll see.

You could see there was more quickness to his arm. He just looked more comfortable throwing the ball.

He's doing what he should be doing. He's throwing with maximum effort that his arm will allow him to right now.

He's where he should be in a rehab. He's throwing at the maximum effort that his arm will allow him. If we can keep him on the rehab schedule, whenever he's able to come back, he'll be back the way he should be -- instead of rushing it and putting timetables on it, which obviously you don't do.

From the time he started throwing the ball all the way through the mound, you could see there was more quickness to his arm and he looked more comfortable throwing the ball.

He's gotten better. He's more aware of it and the impact it has, especially being under the microscope at this level. I don't want him to lose the energy, just channel it enough that the concentration stays on getting hitters out and winning games and that's the end of it.

We've been working on some of the things mechanically and, obviously, I'll pay attention to what the doctors say and try to build arm strength the best we can without getting him hurt. It's kind of a freak injury for a pitcher. You never know where it comes from. We've been trying to stress mechanics even back to when he started his throwing program before this came up. We'll keep stressing it.

He started throwing some breaking balls. We'll probably go at least one more time with what we're doing.

He's throwing fine. It's just building up strength and stamina and his pitches and tiring him out without going overboard with it, and we'll keep progressing from what we did today.

He never came to us. He hasn't said anything. I told him what the plans were. His take on everything is you play every game to win it. I think you're trying to win when he's pitching. Those two goals are in unity with each other.

It's been impressive to where they are up to now. They're throwing the ball with pretty good force behind it. It's not so much what they can do today, but can they feel like they can do it again tomorrow? That's the basis we pretty much use to go forward.

I'll pretty much go through what the doctors say and try to get him through the first three or four times throwing and then decide where he is, how much of a setback two (missed) weeks has been as far as arm strength, stamina and things like that. Try to build him up without taxing him too much.