Tony Russa Last Quotations

He's pitched with so much intensity and so much pressure for so long that when the pressure's not there, he lost a little edge, ... He had good stuff his last two starts, but his location was off.

You can't lose them the way we lost them. When you score one or two against a pitching staff that's last in the league. It's a mystery.

When I gave that compliment last year, ... I was hoping that he was going to retire.

We went through this last year. ... We're not going to get into wild-card formulas. The magic number has got to be zero to celebrate. It is one. ... It's a great feeling to know we're going to play in October, but we've always been taught you're a champion when it gets to zero.

Since he's been a Cardinal, he has been outstanding to great. And last year, he was just good. I imagine he enjoys outstanding to great. But he was a good player for us last year. And if he's motivated to be better than good, that's good for us.

I think we understand we're officially in October baseball. But we discussed it last year and again this year. It just doesn't seem right to celebrate it when the magic number is one. You're watching the number go 10, 9, 8 ... and it gets to one so you celebrate? When it gets to zero, you celebrate. That's what we're going to do.

I always say you don't just win with homers. You need a bunt, you need a hit-and-run, you need a steal. Those are the little things that helped us out to win 105 games last year and those are the things that are helping us out this year to win some games.

What's different about this club, when you have this many setbacks, it's usually part of why you don't win or you barely squeeze by in the last week of the season with a good but not great record. To have this kind of run and play this quality of baseball for this long is why this club deserves a very different kind of credit.

I think if you look at virtually every starter, we've had some rough starts in the last two weeks,

I think if you look at virtually every starter, we've had some rough starts here in the last two weeks, ... The big key is to get back on it mentally and understand that if we don't pitch, we don't win. Against the pitching we're going to face in postseason, we're not going to outscore people.

I'll say exactly what I said last year: It's one; it's not zero. I think we'll take the consistent approach.

I count that as a quality start. Sometimes you can abuse the stats. Our team won the game, when's the last time the Cardinals lost when he started? That's a better stat.

He pitched nine innings against a tough offensive club -- that's dominating. He had a 2-0 pitch to a terrific hitter and he hit the ball out of the state. But that's the last run they got. That's outstanding pitching. No disrespect to anybody in either league who's doing great, but there's nobody greater than Chris. He's clutch.

Every time we play him in the last two-three innings of a game, we're pushing him. It wouldn't be a bad idea for him not to play nine too often.

If you look at last year, we had Scott playing and he had some really big hits, but overall he was really banged up, he wasn't the same the last two months, ... This year we lost four regulars, three of them are boppers, and the guys that took their place did a terrific job of handling the bat, so we played a little different game.

We know him and technically a position player can get here the last two or three weeks and that's plenty of camp. I'm sure he's been working.