Hitters Quotations | Page 6

John did a real good job staying ahead of the hitters most of the time. He was also able to get the curve ball over against certain hitters. I really liked the way he competed. He got seven innings in against a team that beat Coleman 12-5 and beat Jim Ned 6-4. I'm real proud of the way he pitched.

Juan is one of the top young outside hitters in the country. He's an explosive jumper and that helps him attack fast. We have high hopes for him in 2006.

J.P. has brought in pitchers and hitters to help out and that's just what we're going to try and do. We're going to try to put this team back to the level it's been before and the level it deserves to be.

I think everybody played well. We had a couple of moments when we made mistakes we wouldn't have liked to have made. But we distributed the ball well, the outside hitters hit respectably, we blocked some balls and played some good team defense. We stayed pretty focused, I thought.

When you commit to a delivery alteration or different focus, which we've done with almost every single pitcher on the staff, it sometimes takes a while to get the consistent release point. It takes a while to be able to throw the baseball without concentrating on that alteration. Once it's ingrained in there to where they can throw without concentrating on that and put all of their focus on getting hitters out, then they pitch better.

It breaks it up a little bit -- gets them out there to face some competition. It gets the guys on the mound seeing hitters that are swinging and working on making some pitches. It revs things up a little bit.

I take it in stride. It's one of those things you have to deal with, you have to overcome. I went out and threw against some of my own hitters again, just so I could see somebody standing in the box, rather than a bullpen when nobody is there. It's tough. Nothing is like the real game.

I take a lot of pride in (not walking hitters). Early in the year, it was really getting me in trouble. That's not really my game. My game is throwing a lot of strikes. I think that's why I give up a lot of homers. I'm always around the plate, and hitters know they will get something to hit. But as long as I keep them to solo (homers), I usually don't get hurt.

The problem with hitters I think was they weren't sure who he (Pedro) wanted to hit. And he wasn't afraid to hit anybody.

Whether the general manager believes that he can help me out of my pen, I haven't asked yet. That was impressive to me to watch him come right at the hitters with a nice angle to the ball.