Jim Tracy Ball Quotations

Ian Snell threw the ball extremely well. He was very impressive.

Ian Snell made an adjustment from what he was doing early on and got the ball down to where he could be very effective. He forced the opposition to have to swing the bat. He got himself some early-count outs. As a result, he kept his pitch count in order and was able to go through the fourth inning.

I don't care what the numbers suggest. I thought the life to his fastball was as good as we've seen all spring. I think there could have been a couple different choices he made in a few two-strike counts, but I'll tell you: He was throwing nothing but quality pitches in the strike zone. ... He was actually too fine.

I am a firm believer in the fact that a group of guys needs to understand the importance of 90 feet, that it makes the difference in a baseball game. These players will gain a strong realization of that.

That's why you come to the ballpark every night.

He's a great athlete and a heck of a baseball player. You've got to like his future.

He's going to get the ball in the ninth inning. We'll see how it goes. We've got a guy who is a complete novice in that environment. But what I see is a player that an opportunity has been created for him and he's seizing the opportunity.

He's been terrific. He looks to me like a very good baseball player and a very good number two hitter.

I started to fall in love with the game of baseball when my dad gave me my first set of baseball cards, ... I kept the ones I recognized. The guys I didn't were the ones I put in the spokes of my bicycle with clothes pins.

The best way to approach a player with his type of ability and talent is to feel like you've developed a type of environment to allow his development to continue on its natural course. With what we have done this winter, we have put this young man in a position to where his natural progression as a Major League Baseball player has a genuine opportunity to take place without heaping any unexpected expectations on him.

If he's hitting in 2-0 and 3-1 counts, the ball is going to be put in play -- probably hard. You just hope it's hit at somebody.

That was his game to determine. It was his baseball game at that point. You have to give him the opportunity to finish it.

We have the better part of five months of baseball to play.

They put constant pressure on the other team, ... It's a very difficult style of baseball to compete against.

He had two perfect pitches to bunt. That's the guy you want up there to get the bunt down. You get the bunt down, it makes them have to make decisions. And we had a guy coming up who's a contact hitter who can drive the ball to the outfield to drive the run in.

I'm not sitting here suggesting that guys don't get hits on an 0-2 or a 1-2 pitch ... but ordinarily, on 0-2, you don't see balls get hammered. When you come up through a minor-league system, you know early on that when you get a hitter 0-2, a ball sitting right in the middle of the plate is not a very good location.

That ball was sinking. It's still pretty dog-gone good.

Cirillo didn't hit the ball well at all. He just hit it in a wonderful spot.

If you have them, great. If not, there are people in every clubhouse in baseball that every player in the room identifies with. I don't think that he necessarily needs a 'C' on his shoulder or anything like that.

Tonight was, in my opinion, dramatically better than what we saw in Florida. In Florida, he battled, but his fastball command was erratic. Tonight, it was crisp, it was good to both sides of the plate. It's a big step forward for him.

Zach, to me, it's very easy to see. The thing that was pronounced as a result of his timing being off a little bit, the life of his fastball wasn't there.

Pitching and defense has been the name of the game in baseball forever. I don't care what level you're playing at. My philosophy since I started managing has been that, before you can look at any other phases, you've got to feel fairly comfortable that you've got some people who can pitch and you've got to be able to catch the ball. If you can't do either one, your chances of being very good are slim.

You want this whole environment to be fun for them. You want the game of baseball to be fun. You can have fun and also be involved in a businesslike manner and continue to utilize the techniques that we have been talking about over the course of these four days. You can get something done and have people going into the clubhouse with a good feeling about themselves.

You've got to do better than that. If you are going to change the fortunes of your ball club, you've got to be able to beat these guys.

First and foremost, you aren't going to win many games in this or any ballpark with one run. We get six hits from three people, and that won't make it at any park.

I thought he battled. He didn't have his breaking ball until his last two innings. That's a tough club to pitch against with basically just your fastball.

There's no closer in baseball that's perfect, though we lost one (Gagne) who's as close to being one as there is. Brazoban has done a great job.

I'm looking forward to spearheading this ball club to back to some of the days when the Pittsburgh Pirates were somebody you really had to deal with. I'm very anxious in making the players understand there is history here - history for them to be proud of and history for them to follow up on.

It was the best Snell has done. I'm beginning to see some progress from him. He threw enough breaking balls for strikes. He had much better command of his fastball tonight.

The one thing I noticed about this team while watching from the other dugout is that it swung and missed too much. The approach had to change collectively, in my opinion, as far as each and every guy approaches his at bats. You need a group of players that understand that in a given situation it's pretty important for them to try and put the ball in play, and not swing and miss.

I'm not advocating taking a ball on the first pitch every time up there. A couple of times (yesterday), the first pitch was there, and we swung at it. But I'm continuing to see these guys take smart approaches to hitting, and that's encouraging.

I mean, how do you play winning baseball that way? I challenge players to understand how the game's played.

When your timing is off and you're pushing the ball instead of throwing the ball, there will be a decrease in velocity. If the timing is off or the arm slot is off, you won't see the same thing.

I loved those kids. I loved Andrew . . . I loved him. Smartest player I had in that program. He lived for it. Absolutely lived for basketball at St. Martha's.

We did everything we could to get ourselves back in it. We were a base hit from tying it or a ball in the gap from taking the lead. You have to have a lot of good things happen to do that.

We did everything we could do to get ourselves back in it. Once again, we were a base hit from tying it and a ball in the gap from going ahead.

We had something going on in the fifth, it looked like we had a chance to get back in the game, but they cut the inning off. We took some good at-bats off him, we created some opportunity for ourselves ... but from watching him, he's got a crisp fastball and his breaking ball also is very sharp.

No question in my mind. You are talking about people who have great baseball minds and are tireless workers.

Obviously, he helped make us a good baseball team two years ago.

He got 13 ground ball outs, and that's good for a nine-inning game. That's an indication of how well he pitched. That's a very positive sign ... It's March 18th, and you want to see your pitchers starting to sharpen.

There's a lot of baseball to be played.

I purposely ... started him, just to see how he'd respond, ... And he hit the ball long and foul, but the point is, you've got to protect the runner.

That's his game to determine at that point. You take him out of the game like that there, you bring in the bullpen and a mistake is made, a ball gets hit in the gap, and he's the pitcher of record in the losing decision, and he got to watch it on the other side of the dugout. I don't handle pitching that way.

A little thing like that can end up winning you a baseball game.

I think it's very safe to say that Ryan is not a finished product defensively. I also feel that, when you look at a major-league baseball team that has 25 active members and half of that is your pitching staff, it's pretty imperative that that stuff back there behind the plate gets taken care of.

I think a group of players has to understand the type of baseball you have to play to play winning baseball. You have to realize the importance of the intangibles, the little things.

He can go get a ball and make it look easy and effortless. I want to see how versatile a player he is, but he will have a home at third base for some time.

If I'm a pitcher and I'm paying close attention, I'm certainly not going to be afraid to attack somebody's bat. I want the ball in play -- because they're going to make plays.

In the second inning, his breaking ball for a strike early in the count was a lot better than it was in the first inning.

If you want to swing off of live pitching, go right ahead. But recognize the fact of what a strike is and what a ball is. Let's get a good swing at a good pitch.

He surely can do that. I'd have to say he gets a tremendous read on the ball off the bat. He certainly covers a lot of ground.

He's an excellent baseball player, that's what he has shown me. He's very intriguing to me.