Joe Girardi Game Quotations

We are going to lose some close games, but fans have to be sure that we'll bring our best game every night.

He taught me to be a better receiver, a more comfortable receiver. He taught me how to throw better. I changed my whole throwing once I met him. We talked in depth about handling pitchers, pitch selection. Any phase of the game he was involved in making me better.

What means something is that we're playing the game right.

We've got to win that game. We didn't play the game the way we're capable of playing, and I hope they're getting tired of it.

Our guys are young and they're going to bounce back. They know they have to prove themselves every day in this league. They have to learn how to play the game at this level and it's not something that happens overnight.

Miguel can't afford to get hurt in a game like this. Not if I want to continue to manage.

You just can't throw the ball away. You got to take what the game will give you and you can't make spectacular plays when there's nothing there. You have to know your base runners.

We gave Eric several days in a row, and now we're giving Reggie a bunch of days in a row. We've got to get one of our center fielders going. When you're young, this can be a tough game to get it going. The danger is you don't have anything to fall back on at this level. I always say you find out what a guy's made of when he struggles.

Is it unfair? In a sense, yes. But I think we all know why we're doing it that way, and that's part of what makes this game tick. It's what keeps salaries up.

It was an ugly game for us. We didn't pitch, we didn't play defense, we didn't hit with runners on. It's difficult to win a game like that.

They didn't hit a lot of balls hard off him. It's a game that's very frustrating at times because you feel like you're so close. ... We're going to learn how to win these games. We were close tonight.

It was important that our guys played the game right, and that's what they did. Wins are a byproduct of doing things right. I don't worry about wins, I worry about the process. And the process was pretty good.

It's kind of mind-boggling because he seemed to be on top of his game tonight. He's done it twice in his last two starts and the organization has never seen him do that. He usually locks in and focuses more.

It will be different. I'll be standing against that brick wall, making a lot of decisions tonight. It's great. This is where it all started for me. I was drafted by the Cubs and played my first game here in 1989.

You've got to learn how to play this game. And a lot of our guys are being asked to learn this game at this level. That's what you have in young players. They are smart kids, they are going to learn.

The game always looks better when you hit. Guys swung at pitches in the zone that they liked.