That’s basically what it boiled down to.

The great thing about Roberto Hernandez is he understands the concept of what we’re trying to implement here. Stay within the framework of what’s being drawn up to create that continuity.

I mean, how do you play winning baseball that way? I challenge players to understand how the game’s played.

The last five or six games, I’ve been doing some things that go against the norm of what I usually do,

When you have somebody who has his type of energy, who brings that to the table like he does, the potential is there to strike quickly like that.

The allure, for me, was, No. 1, the stability of the front office. The other thing was looking at a group of players I’d managed against the past couple of years and realizing there’s some...

It’s an old clich ”© that guys who aren’t the most talented players make good managers and teachers, … I fall into that category … I had to do a lot of listening and learning...

There have to be days where someone takes you deep [into a game]. There has to be a day every once in a while where someone doesn’t even have any of [the relief pitchers] out...

I thought he battled. He didn’t have his breaking ball until his last two innings. That’s a tough club to pitch against with basically just your fastball.

Zach, to me, it’s very easy to see. The thing that was pronounced as a result of his timing being off a little bit, the life of his fastball wasn’t there.

He had a few more three-ball counts — too many — than I’d like to see. That puts him in a vulnerable position.

Any time you face a pitcher the caliber of Chris Carpenter, you get one opportunity against him. He started quick and it took us until the seventh to get our opportunity to crack through.

You can’t ask a group of players to play any harder than they have for two days and, especially tonight, take the kind of at-bats that we took all night long.

That was his game to determine. It was his baseball game at that point. You have to give him the opportunity to finish it.

I don’t think any of us should spend a whole lot of time being concerned with that. The way it gets better and becomes much more attractive to look at is to address (problem areas).

It’s one more thing we have to deal with this year and one thing we have to bring into next season.

He was completely on top of his game, … I couldn’t be happier for him. He’s been the workhorse of the staff.

He has a tremendous baseball mind. When I have someone like that sitting next to me, I feel confident there is not too much that’s going to get by us during the course of a...

You don’t take a rookie and give him a second All-Star break, … If it’s Eric Gagne it’s a completely different story, but Eric Gagne wasn’t that way when he first started. Eric Gagne would...

The term is willingness. We can have a lot of information that may help them as people and players. But it’s a two-way street. You have to be receptive to the information. You have to...

Tonight’s another case of what we’ve been dealing with the last few days. We pitched well enough to win, but didn’t hit well enough to win.

I’m anxious to see the real Oliver Perez. I want to see him step forward and become the Oliver Perez I know he is. What he did in 2005 is not anywhere near what he...

You make bad pitches to Major League hitters, they put the fat part of the bat on the ball. When you are involved in games like that, regardless of what stages it’s at, you don’t...

I won’t say where they are going to start. But he is the type of guy we are looking for to hopefully place in between two left-handers that have somewhat similar stuff and not give...

I think the personnel is here to get that done.

Once we get to the point of a second opinion and finding out exactly where that’s going to take us, that’s obviously the next thing that we’re waiting for. In the interim, there’s no need...

I think you bring the best out of your players when you sit and study and look very closely at what their capabilities are and then try to find situations where their talents have the...

It’s going to be tough to score off us in the latter part of the game. If a starter has the know-how and capability of getting 18 outs with a slim lead, we’re in pretty...

Oh, yeah, he can make the club. Is he going to make it? I don’t know the answer to that question today, but can he make the club? You’d better believe he can.

I did not want to overdo it [Wednesday]. I am a firm believer that too much information too quickly can short-circuit people. We take it very slowly and make sure the concepts are understood. We’ll...

I’m not advocating taking a ball on the first pitch every time up there. A couple of times (yesterday), the first pitch was there, and we swung at it. But I’m continuing to see these...

Oliver knows how to gear himself up for situations. But, while he was gearing up, he was maintaining his focus.

It was just sitting in the zone. Three runs, and we’re going to play catch-up from the top of the second inning on.

It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s what we’ve been talking about all spring – we went up there looking for something good to take a swing at.

They didn’t make the decision any easier. And that’s what you hope for. You want to have to make tough choices. This is not easy.

We got a solid pitching performance. Unfortunately, we got two hits.

It’s important that this entire group of players are involved.

Duaner was effective, but when you’re in a ballgame like that, you have no breathing room. And a leadoff double, when you’re dealing with the middle of their order, causes problems for you. Great pitches...

There wasn’t any point in this series where he had to overdo it with our bullpen. You couldn’t ask for a better situation going into Colorado.

We’re not sitting here talking about it today if it had remained [in the clubhouse]. It was made public. A lot of information and feelings were expressed.

It’s nothing that surprised us. It’s all pre-existing. After they do those two spots, depending on how the progress is with his left wrist, they may have to do something with that, too.

Zach Duke, uncharacteristic of him, threw 46 pitches in the first two innings [of his first start]. The difference was the damage wasn’t as significant.

I’m certainly wondering about the one two-strike pitch that got called a ball. I’m really wondering about that one.

We obviously came to a point where there was a difference of opinion between Paul and I as far as how players are evaluated. It was basically how you look at and evaluate players, the...

You have to give Marquis credit. That was our quietest game this season.

We did everything we could, considering that one run won’t get you too far. We had to work hard for that one run.

Carelessness is not tolerated here any more.

Jose is the perfect National League player. A bench player with that kind of versatility is invaluable.

I don’t really think he’ll get better from the sidelines. But I think we’re getting to the point where you’d certainly like to think we’ll sit here and see some improvement.

Sometimes it takes one at-bat in one game for the light to go on. You can accomplish a lot by doing what we were doing with Duffy today.