Kevin Towers Year Quotations

Let's relax, have a good time and prove that we're better than people think. We play to our competition. All year long, we've done that. The Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals, if we're fortunate enough to get there, I don't think they're going to take us lightly.

Based on the type of year he had this year in the International League, we believe Kenny is on the comeback trail. We still feel like he has an upside.

He's a tremendous athlete -- we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. Last year was his breakout year. He's had some success at the big-league level now -- and he's going to get better.

I think the biggest reason we won last year was our bullpen. I don't think there's ever an excuse for not putting together a good bullpen.

We'd look at our schedule last year and pray our big games were on the road. This year it's the complete opposite. We actually love it here at home.

We have added some great character guys, something we really lacked. We had some shared leadership last year at times from (Dave) Roberts, (Mark) Loretta and others, but it was something we really lacked. I have heard nothing but good things about Mike Cameron; he's a good guy to have in the locker room.

It just happened that we had more of a need in center field. We all knew 'X' can play. Certainly, this would have been the year that would have provided a great opportunity to play one of the corner positions. But in this outfield here, we thought it was more important to go get a guy who can play center field.