Tony Russa Three Quotations

He just didn't have it. I just don't think that it's a good idea to pat a guy on the back for getting to the sixth inning when he was ineffective for three innings. ... He's capable of so much better than that.

In the eighth inning, we missed our location three times, twice when we were ahead in the count. We almost caught a break -- Cabrera's ball was tagged, but it fooled Walker. That would have been an important break to catch. Matt got the ball up with a 1-2 count, and the pitch that Delgado tripled on wasn't where Ray was trying to throw it. Against good clubs in key situations, either you do or you don't, and if you don't, you get penalized most of the time.

I think it's huge. With the 2-3-2 format, you let this one get away from you, and who knows what's going to happen tomorrow and then you have three at their place.

If you return a lot of the strong nucleus, year to year, for two or three years, I think that'd be an exception. There's too many free agents, there are times money forces you to make decisions to not tender (contracts to) guys who all of a sudden become too expensive. You're trying to prioritize how to spend your money, and everybody faces it.

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.

He throws strikes, has three pitches -- and his three pitches are major league caliber.

Think about it, I brought him into a tie game, how much more do you want to expand the role? He pitched three innings, so it's going to be a couple of days before he's back out there.

If Wally gets excited and gives him an inch, ... it's going to be two or three inches.