Dave Duncan Time Quotations

He had a good, solid year. I'm happy the organization recognized it. It will be a good experience for him to spend some time here and see what it's all about. This is one of the steps that is part of the process of establishing yourself as a player.

He's a location and change of speeds pitcher. It takes a little time during the spring to get all of your pitches going and get comfortable with them. He's doing good.

I think we have the makings of a good bullpen. It always takes a certain amount of time when you have new people to figure out exactly how they're going to fit in best with your club. We've played six games. I don't think that's quite enough time to have it figured out yet.

I'm sure by the time the playoffs get here, Ray King will be fine. Because we're going to give him as many opportunities as we can to pitch in those situations, and he's good enough to get the job done.

You get in and get it behind you, and your focus changes the second time around. That's a big adrenaline burst for anybody no matter what the situation is. We needed to try to get it under their belt.

It's hard to identify who's No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Because at different times, each one of those guys gets on a roll. And at that particular time, he's the No. 1 guy for us. ... Every one of them has had their periods of time when they threw as good as anybody.

That gives him time to get some treatment and also throw in the bullpen prior to starting a game.

He throws four pitches for strikes, he keeps the ball down, gets a lot of ground balls and he's a strikeout pitcher. He's got a lot of innings pitched in the minor leagues and ... he has developed the consistency that's needed to pitch at this level. We feel it's important he get his feet on the ground up here (in St. Louis) for the time in the future when he's a starter.

All the pitches they got hurt on were belt high. I don't like it, but I understand it. Next time out, we hope to be seeing guys take another step forward, making more quality pitches, get them in that mode.