Frank Robinson Star Quotations

I'd certainly prefer to finish fourth than finish fifth. There's a stigma to that: last. 'You finished last, last year.' And after the start we had, ... that just kind of throws cold water completely on the whole season right there.

He may have one more of these backup-type things of coming into a game after a starter. Then he should be in line to start a game.

He will get five starts instead of six. It's just to make sure, give him plenty of time. He is still on schedule to start opening day.

Sooner or later, Zimmerman's going to start three or four ballgames in a row, and Short may start two or three, Watson one or two, ... But basically, you're going to see the same guys that have been here finish out the season.

We have to get people on base. That's what we have to do. We have to get people on base and we have to get the big base hit. We're not doing any of that right now. We also have to start driving the ball to the gaps -- doubles. And we have to start our offense early in the inning rather than waiting for one or two outs. Those are the things we have to do and then things will fall into place. We will score runs. We will have the opportunity to score runs. We will have the opportunity to drive runs in.

We have to pay attention to details right now, and hopefully we can keep going, ... I just think they had to get down to business. They had to pay attention to the game itself and not all this side stuff and the stuff out on the street. They have to focus on playing baseball. That was my view of it. And I think they are starting to get that feel.

Who's it going to be? ... We don't have other starters here.

He will start playing as soon as he gets here.

One thing he has to start doing, he has to start being productive. He has to, because you can't keep going 0-for-3, 0-for-4, 0-for-4, 1-for-4, that type of thing, from the top of the lineup.

I might be more reasonable with it. There will be a certain time when the things go off. At a certain time, you have to start preparing yourself for the ballgame and think about the people around you.

It's already out there now. It's just like it happened last year, one guy starts to complain about it, the next guy picks it up a few games later when they hit a ball pretty decent. Then it starts to spread. To say management doesn't care about winning, that's way off base.

Coming to spring training and filling three spots in your starting rotation is not good. I don't care how you look at it.

He's a good hitter, he's a good athlete. We've got to start treating him like a hitter.

We are the only team to start the season with 21 losses, so we are not going to be off the hook,

We need to start performing the way this team is capable of and what we expect - and that's pitching, defense and hitting. Until we do that, we're going to get beat.

The frustration starts when we played like we played last night and then we come out and play like we did today. I don't know what it is. I just can't figure this team out.

Where do you go back, stop and say, 'OK, when did he start using steroids?' To eliminate all that, and get the players' attention, you wipe the whole thing out.

You can't keep going like this and saying, 'Well, it's early. It's going to come around.' We need to get results and we need to get them starting tomorrow.

A lot of teams are using emergency starters this time of year, ... but we have two 'openings' in our rotation instead of just one and, right now, they come back to back.

Things are starting to come together. Like I told you guys, it was very important that we got something going before we dug a deep hole for ourselves. It takes an awful lot to come out of that. Slowly, we're starting to do that.

I am perplexed about how we're not producing on offense. But I can't start panicking now. You have to be very careful this early in the season. We have to be patient to a certain extent. How much longer, I can't tell you.

Each day you miss, it comes into question. He still has time, but it will be close. These are the days now you start revving it up a little bit.

What I think they've done the last three days is play the way they're capable of playing. Their attention is now on baseball itself and not a lot of outside stuff, and it's starting to show up on the field.

We haven't put everything together for any length of time. Maybe when the bell rings and we start for real, we can put it together. A lot of these guys haven't played together. It's going to take a while for the chemistry to come together, but this team has the ability to do that, to come together as a team. But, again, that comes from winning and enjoying the game.

It's good news and we are very excited about that, but it's a wait-and-see thing, too. We will wait and see how he reacts to this and how he feels, and when he goes out there and starts working again, then we will determine how good that news is.