It seemed like he really wanted to learn and he learned fast. I don’t know what Andy was telling him, but whatever it was it sunk in real fast.

Hopefully, I can help get things rolling and start us off on the right foot here (tonight). We tend to play well at home, so hopefully that will happen.

We need to win a lot of games. It’s good to win, especially in extra innings with this heat.

Puck would’ve wanted us to go out and play.

I made a couple mistakes and they beat me today. I felt pretty good out there. I just made a couple mistakes.

That’s two in a row. Hopefully we can spread ’em out and get the bats going at home.

When you turn 90, you’ve done something right. Hopefully I can even come close to that.

It’s obviously very hard for a lot of people right now. It’s been a tough last couple of days. He’s with good hands right now, you know, but he’s going to be very missed.

It was almost a repeat of the first two starts, except for a couple of runs late. I just need to bear down and do a better job next time.

I don’t think the season really begins for about two weeks. We were just getting in off the road, and that’s hard enough. It takes time to get settled in at home and get comfortable.

It’s to the point where … it just drives you crazy,

It’s working better, as I had a strikeout on it today and a couple of other strikes. The secret weapon is coming.

As the season progressed, it was like, ‘Holy cow.’ Carlos has such a nasty sinker and throws so many ground balls that he can be really confident about making the hitters put the ball in...

We are going into the off-day definitely on a positive note. Now, we just need to stay on top of things and keep playing hard.

I made some good pitches there, and our bats did the rest,

I thought we were going down.

Yeah, but I stunk today. I wanted to go back out for the third, but [Gardenhire] didn’t want me to, so whatever. The team battled back. The bullpen did an outstanding job. Joe [Mays] came...

It’s not happening, it’s just not happening. It seems like every time I make a mistake over the plate, it gets hit pretty hard. I just need to do a little better job of locating...

The first inning was pretty important. Maybe that got us going a bit. It was nice to see the guys put up some crooked numbers.

Not calling it anything yet. I’ve got to make sure it works first.

I feel pretty good. By the time April rolls around I should be ready to go.

I thought I threw a good pitch, and he hit it hard.

You just don’t want to get too far behind in the standings in April and May. They’ve had a pretty good start. They’ve been playing some pretty good baseball.

The expectations for this team and this pitching staff coming into this season were big, … and [the starters] got caught up in them and put too much pressure on ourselves.

Shoot, haven’t seen anything like that in a while. It’s good to see. Hopefully, we’ll do that in April, May, June, July, August, September and October. If we do that, we’ll be all right.

It’s going to get pretty loud in there now.

The start that I have had has been very frustrating for me. I want to do my best and get the team going.

I think these two teams have a lot in common. We can look out and say, ‘Look what the A’s can do with a small payroll’ and we’re in the same boat.

He’s amazing because he overpowers guys and still has finesse, too.

I’m ready to go. My slider is working pretty well, and that’s my fourth-best pitch. It’s working better for me this year.

This one was pretty rough. I think it’s probably the roughest one I’ve had. I just have to keep battling away and hopefully find that rhythm that I’m looking for.

We have a guy who can hit 30 home runs — Justin. He should do it real easy.

It’s nice to see where you came up from. You kind of lose track of those guys when you’re up here. It’s a little bit of an eye opener to go back.

I still haven’t decided. I’ll let you know down the road.

It’s frustrating for me, and it’s also frustrating for the guys, too. I want to go out and do my best and get this team on the right track. Just glad it’s the end of...

Keep guys off the bases by limiting walks and you really give yourself a chance. Guys are going to get hits. But if you limit those free passes, they have to work a lot harder...

This organization really stresses not walking guys. I think that as a staff, we’ve sort of been able to feed off each other in that regard. You learn. I know that when I walk guys,...

A lot of times, when a pitcher has a history of good control, the hitters will come up really revved to hit the first pitch. Sometimes that works out for them and sometimes it doesn’t....

Hopefully this will kind of get us going a little bit.

I haven’t seen us hit like that in a while. If we can do that in September and October, we’ll be all right.

Because I’m getting old. I can’t go out there with the same slop every five days.

Our offense is much improved. We had a few guys who had down years last year. They’ll help out more.

They keep everyone loose. That was something I thought about when I signed back here.

Everybody was quiet, pretty much kept to themselves.