Ron Gardenhire Start Quotations

But if guys aren't even close, you've got to start looking at maybe making changes. You definitely like to give them at least a month into the season and see where we're at.

And that's a pretty good formula. You get your starter to go eight or nine innings and you hit three-run homers. Normally it works out pretty good.

To me, starting the season with people less than 100 percent is very, very scary. I'm not talking about a little bit of a sore shoulder or something you play through, but I'm talking about muscle pulls and those types of things. Those come back and all of a sudden you're out.

The best-case scenario, you come into camp with a starting second baseman and a starting shortstop. We don't have that here. But we're working on it.

I wouldn't be afraid to start any of those guys on Tuesday.

Once he starts playing the outfield and proves to us that he can run the bases and play the outfield a few days in a row, then we'll see where he's at.

Sending him back out there, that's a little silly to try to do something stupid with a man's career. We haven't done that to him all year, and we weren't going to start today.

I'm going to start him, too. I'm going to try to get him at-bats. You can't be a good hitter off the bench unless you get at-bats and get a good feel for it. You can't just sit there and get one at-bat a week or every three days.

I'm not going to expect too much of him. We want to take it nice and slow and not put too much pressure on him. I do believe he's going to help our team sometime this year, even if he starts the season in the minors.

I'm not jittery. It's not the greatest thing in the world to start out like this. I'm not jittery about it. I think these guys can play a little bit and we'll be all right.

The good news is that we'll get his innings stretched out and he'll be somewhat ready to start the season. Whether it's here right away or down the road, he'll be on that schedule.

All he can do is go out and throw the baseball, ... You have to think of where Radke is at. He has been our No. 1 starter for how many years? When you're the No. 1 starter, who are you facing? You're facing the other teams' No. 1, No. 2 starter pretty much the whole year.

It could be a while if our lineup starts clicking and scoring some runs.

When your infielder can't go out and play, you get a little nervous. You start to look around and inventing things on how you could get through it if certain things happen.

We're starting to get concerned. It's mid-March, and he hasn't been out there yet. We have time, but the time is getting to where he needs to get out there and see some hitters.

He's getting better pitches to hit. That's what happens when you start swinging well. The pitcher makes mistakes and you hit it instead of fouling it off.

He's getting an MRI. If that comes out OK, he can start hitting again next week.

He'd start wearing down. He'd tighten up a bit. You could tell.

Every time you start trying to figure something out, somebody gets whacked. So we're just going to let it go down to the end.

We've protected our starting staff, so they're good, they're ready to go. We haven't let anybody kill themselves throwing 120 pitches, so we're set up for September pitching-wise, if our bullpen can maintain.

If he starts ripping the cover off the ball, that always puts a thought in your mind to keep him. Playing everyday in the outfield is a better thing for him right now, so one thing I don't want is him here coming off the bench and being a pinch-hitter.

If he starts really popping his pitches, then he could be ready. That's what we're hoping for.

If everything comes back OK, then he will start hitting later in the week. Right now we're not quite sure where he's at.

He's got the contract thing, the whole package. When you're in your contract year, you start thinking about it. Guys that can play a little bit usually get after it pretty good. We figured he'd be on a pretty good mission.

It wasn't pretty, but the bottom line is you've got to start winning games. It doesn't matter how you do it.

He was a little out of whack before, but he's not out of whack anymore. This guy is making a case for himself. You get down toward the playoffs, you start looking at who can do it and who can't. It looks like he can do some things.

He told me they didn't play him at all in a position in Spring Training, and then they get to the season and half way through they start him in the outfield. We just need to get him out there so he can see balls off bats and try to get him acclimated.

We're doing fine. I'm not going to start messing around with guys' brains. In time, he'll hit cleanup. We've said that before.

Guys are trying. Guys are out there playing. You've also got to score some runs, too. Our starters haven't been getting it done. Our offense has to pick them up.

We're going through enough in our situation here with Puck and the whole package, and then this comes back out and starts punching baseball in the head. It's not much fun to see again. I thought we were past that era.

Maybe we can put some fear in them, They have a single-digit lead (over Cleveland) now, so you know they're starting to feel the effects. And that's half the battle, to see how people handle things.

I'm sure hoping it's not going to be like that all year. That would be a tough thing to have to deal with. That's why you take precautions now in Spring Training, so once you start season everyone is healthy.

All of the guys are excited to see one another and to realize that the start of Spring Training is right around the corner.

We definitely need those guys to hit, that's the middle of the lineup. We need our middle guys to start banging the runs around.

Kenny Rogers is not the guy he likes to face very often, so we sat him out. But he was ready to play. We've lost a lot of people, and Jacque is one guy who needs to step up.... Hopefully that's a good start for him to get on a roll.

We're getting down to a few numbers where we can work it a little easier and not try to get everyone in. We want to start stretching out our players and take a good look at some of these guys that are battling each other and battling for positions on this team.

We have time, but if we push it another week, it's going to be iffy. I'm starting to worry a little bit.

Their pitcher was aware. Wood did a great job there. Most pitchers would catch the ball and start arguing with the umpire. He was very aware. He turned around looked home. He did a great job on that play.

I'm not sitting around thinking about it as much as I used to. I used to booby trap everything. You start worrying about that stuff coming back at you. I'm a little calmer because there are different people here.

We feel pretty good when you start writing out a roster. Even with the injuries, it's not bad.

They kind of whacked us around. Joe was up in the zone and they pretty much hit everything he threw up there. And that's a pretty good formula. You get your starter to go eight or nine innings and you hit three-run homers. Normally it works out pretty good.