Braden Looper Quotations

I feel great physically, which is why (this stinks) because I've battled so long to get to feeling good. It's the best I've felt on the mound since 2004. ... It's just a matter of getting back to what I'm good at - that's throwing the ball down in the zone.

I feel like I'm making progress. And that's all you can ask for. ... I feel like right now, the last two or three days I've hopefully gotten rid of some bad habits and consistently repeated my delivery. If I can do that, my pitches are going to be down and I'm going to be successful.

I feel like I'm getting my form back.

I don't think anybody in here really knows what is going on so I don't want to speculate. We hope the best for him and hope everything is OK.

Glav pitched a great game, should have had the win today,

Glavine pitched a great game and he should have won it, ... I stunk.

I get in a (Grapefruit League) game and I don't focus like I did today. It was spring training. When you're in a game, you're focused and it's like kicking it to a different level. I'll take three ground balls. That's what I told you guys when I came here.

I was upset then. I was pretty naive. The Cardinals drafted me, and I envisioned playing my whole career there. I didn't know how long I would be in Florida.

I stunk it up. I feel bad for Glav, I feel bad for the team. It's over. There's nothing I can do about it now.

You get to throw pitches. That's what I needed to do - get in a game. I've said all along that things will work themselves out. I know where I'll be. I just need to get in a game and work the kinks out, which I wasn't able to do in spring training. I felt good, kept the ball down and got ground balls. Even the base hit was a ground ball. It just hit a boulder and took a bad hop. I felt good.

The trade gave me a chance to pitch and grow. In retrospect, it worked out well. It allowed me to establish myself at the major league level.

It would be hard to say no, ... But it's definitely not what I prefer.

These streaks come and go. It's just a bad time for us. That's for sure.

This is probably the most frustrating time I've ever had. It seems no matter what I do right now, it goes wrong.

They were hacking at the first pitch I threw every time. It was a good test. I got ready quick. I got ready in the middle of an inning. I definitely left a few pitches up, and that's going to happen for me early because I'm still in that feeling-out stage early after surgery.

The best way to describe it, ... is you have a quarter-inch rock in your shoe and you're just running with it all the time. It's irritating. You feel like you can't do what you want to do.

As a closer, you never like to get pulled. But it's the manager's call, and he almost made the exact right call. How could you blame him?

I let my team down. I let everybody down, ... We should have won the game.

I'm not as good as I'll be in a month. I'll definitely be better. The only thing that gets you better is getting into games. Every time out there I feel it's better, better, better.

I know my role is to get the ball to Izzy and that's fine. If he needs a day off, I can close. I always liked St. Louis. I didn't get to play my entire career there, but who knows, maybe I will finish it there.

I never thought that I would pitch for the Cardinals again. The adjustment will be easier than the one when I signed with the Mets. St. Louis is a baseball town with the greatest fans in the world.

It helped me just being in the game and it being not Spring Training. You're concentrating more, focused on what you're doing. I felt good, kept the ball down, which is what I want to do.

I don't want to say I expected to finish my career here, but I hoped I was going to pitch here for a while, ... I wish I would have pitched better. I don't think I was as bad as some people said, but you go out and give it all you've got.

You definitely get the blame because the game's won, ... I hold myself accountable.

The ultimate responsibility falls on me. We have a lot better team this year, regardless of this streak. I don't know why this is happening.

All right in a row, too. That was a big test because I thought I could go to that other side of the plate (inside on lefties), which I wasn't able to do much of last season.