Mike Scioscia Pitch Quotations

The way he carried himself on the field, the little things he did made a difference in what his pitchers could do. He was terrific.

Our bullpen came through. Kelvim shined the whole night. Kelvim made some big pitches and gave us a big lift.

John looks ready to go. He's one of the top pitchers in our league. He had quite a year.

That is unwarranted that he got tossed. An opposition batter charges the mound and our pitcher gets tossed? That is an absolute joke.

That's a tough lineup, and you have to make pitches in good locations to get them out. I think he got a little too fine in some counts.

He came in and got in the zone early and got in a groove. He made some pitches when he had to. I think we made him work for it. He found his release point. He's got great stuff.

The only way you can beat Oakland is with good pitching. You've got to match them pitch by pitch.

He had a couple good innings, then his pitch count got a little elevated and we were hoping that he could get through six. He found a second wind and he got through seven and eight.

He fought off some tough pitches and fouled off some tough pitches. If he got a pitch to hit, I was confident he would have squared one up.

I'd be surprised if Jon missed 12 pitches all night. His first-strike ratio was incredible. Those guys are horses. We have to do a better job of getting to them early.

Ervin was a little bit shy on command, but when he needed to make pitches he did.

(Lackey) wasn't as sharp as we've seen him, ... He threw a lot of pitches early, and then he settled in. I thought he kept his composure, and he pitched. You look at the linescore and see seven scoreless innings and say he breezed, but it wasn't easy.

When that happens it puts more of a burden on a guy like Vlad. Sometimes you can pitch around one guy in the middle, and we've seen that. When Vlad was out of the lineup we hung in there. We had some guys swinging the bat well. I don't think we go as far as Vlad goes, but we need more than that.

None of our pitchers are in Chicago. We're going to use every pitcher we need tonight to get past tonight's game.

His stuff was fine, (but) we didn't make a couple of plays behind him, and they had some hits fall in. The wild pitch certainly didn't help us, but it's just one tough inning. Shields will be fine.

He's a special pitcher. If you look at what he's accomplished from the middle of last year till now, I don't think there's a pitcher who can match what he's done.

I think he looks very smooth back there, and it's obvious that he works well with the pitching staff. He's mobile, he's got a quick release, and I think his arm is solid.

We had to pitch well tonight. John did a great job, along with Scot and Frankie. We got some big two-out hits, which were important.

We had to pitch our butts off the whole series. We didn't have a lot of options at that point, but we had a lot of confidence in Ervin. Ervin Santana 's the story tonight.

(Washburn) is feeling better but it could be more than one start (missed). He'll pitch when he's at a level that he can go out there and compete and not be at risk.

Brandon has made some great strides. There was a little bit of question that he would be too big to play shortstop, but he has proved to be a premium talent. He has dynamite in his bat. His challenge now is to step up to better pitching and to excel at a higher level.

He laid off some pitches to get in some hitting counts, and when he got a pitch to hit, he was on it. I think he's got all the tools he needs now. It's going to be a matter of stamina, and maintaining it.

We're not as crisp in areas that we need to be in. One thing is pitching. We have a couple of things where pitchers have gotten into their starts and they've been a little bit erratic and getting into deep counts. That is where it starts, with pitching.

This kid responded to every situation as well as anybody who ever put a Major League uniform on, whether it was a game down in the pennant stretch or going into New York or pitching a ballgame in the summer. He wants to keep getting better, and that's why we're excited about his future.

It's too early to really know how to pitch him, and I think you saw that with our pitchers.

Give him credit. We had some opportunities, but he made some pitches and shut the door.

If he helps us pitch three or four games and we win, it will keep the bullpen continuity, ... It carries a lot more weight than if he were to pitch one game on Wednesday.

I just saw Steve last winter when his son was pitching against my son. Everything was looking up for him and he looked great. It makes you numb when you hear about a situation like this. He had a roller-coaster ride.

It puts Bartolo in a special plateau of pitchers. I haven't seen that many pitchers that can throw it that hard with that kind of movement. He can get three different looks with his fastball.

Kelvim just shined in his big innings tonight. He gave us big pitches and strong innings out of the bullpen, and that's why he's down there in the pen.

Against Detroit, I don't know if he was a little psyched up and he was maybe overthrowing a little bit. Tonight, he was much more in tune early in the game and his pitches were very, very crisp.

We've talked about that for awhile, ... It's something we'll continue to look at very closely. ... His velocity is good and at times he throws to his pitching spots, and that needs to continue. ... We feel he has enough in his tank to do what any of our starters need to do down the stretch.

We feel we have a good young arm going against those guys, and the only way you're going to beat pitching is to match them pitch for pitch.

His fastball command was a little erratic, but the command on his offspeed pitches was there, and his velocity was good. He got his work in. It did not set him back.

He pitched a terrific ball game. He matched four of our pitchers with what he did.

He pitched a great game. Offensively, we didn't get anything going and every pitch is magnified. He didn't make many mistakes today at all. We just didn't pressure them enough offensively.

He didn't really pitch deep into the game against the Yankees. He's done it before this year, and he came out in flying colors so we're confident he's going to get to a point in his game where we have some of the arms in the bullpen we're going to get to.

We certainly set the table, but we couldn't get that hit with guys in scoring position. (Rodrigo Lopez) made some pitches to put some guys away that were on the money, and we just couldn't put pressure on him. We just couldn't get that one hit to kind of get things going.

A lot of times the pitch you need to get a guy out is either out of the zone or in the dirt and you need to block the ball or tag the guy out. Our guys work on that and our pitchers need to have confidence to throw that pitch.