Having someone teaching our infielders who has learned from someone as respected as Perry Hill, that means a lot.

Webb made great pitches, … He was throwing curveballs and changeups for strikes.

If he’s hitting in 2-0 and 3-1 counts, the ball is going to be put in play — probably hard. You just hope it’s hit at somebody.

We’ve seen this be done on numerous occasions. You hate like hell if they huddled, reversed the call and it was wrong. To their credit, they got it right.

I thought Ryan caught a good game. He certainly will go back out there.

Zach Duke deserves to pitch the home opener in Pittsburgh. He’s earned that right.

What the schedule says is what you do. I think we came out of it pretty good, all things considered.

Just giving him two or three days. Hey, that kid can fall out of bed and hit. The first game we played he had three hits and every one was smoked. I said right then,...

We need some starts where we get seven or eight innings, and it would be great if we could even get one at some point in which the guys in the bullpen wouldn’t even have...

This affords him a couple of days to get some things sorted out, because we know offensively he is much, much better than what we have seen to this point.

We had our chances to win that game, but it boils down, night after night, to the kind of game we had, and I say the same thing. We needed a situational at-bat to tie...

Back in May, when the Padres went something like 22-6, they had a chance to slam the door, throw the lock around the handle and close it off for everybody else. And it didn’t happen....

That was his best outing. He threw four pitches for strikes and he pounded the strike zone.

He (Perez) was throwing the ball better as the game went on. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t win. I don’t look at this as a bad beginning.

To sit on Mike Gonzalez until the ninth inning might have put you in a position where you don’t get an opportunity to use him. It just made all the sense in the world.

Now he’s starting to take the at-bats we saw him take in the first couple months of the season,

Do I advocate that you go up to the plate looking to walk? No,

When you come in and you sit down at your desk and try to structure the middle of your lineup, that’s a fairly daunting task.

Obviously, that’s the hot topic these days. I’ve done everything I possibly can to keep Freddy involved, and he has responded big-time. You have to get Freddy at-bats, but you also have to give those...

Obviously, it’s not something you want to see. That’s for sure. But I think you always have to be prepared for something like this to happen to one of your players.

We had opportunities. But you need that one extra hit, the one that puts you back in the game.

You get 27 outs, and every single one of them is precious. The point is to maximize the efficiency of each and every out. That’s vital.

He’s the consummate professional. He plays the game only one way and that’s to win. I really think the fans in Pittsburgh are going to love this guy. He’s their type of player.

I’ve never signed up for anything with the thought in mind that I wanted to be mediocre. I feel pretty good about it.

You’d be blind if you didn’t look at this guy and say there’s a lot of ability. And you know what? He’s an even better person.

We’re a much different club when we get results like that.

We’ve never quit. We just need to come back here tomorrow and try to turn this thing around.

It’s kind of unfortunate when you consider how the offense is playing, and you get pitched right out of the game.

Duckworth has kind of pitched his way into this picture, no question.

It was the best Snell has done. I’m beginning to see some progress from him. He threw enough breaking balls for strikes. He had much better command of his fastball tonight.

I was fairly impressed. We couldn’t do anything, and he was still out there in the sixth inning and still getting people out.

It will depend on how things go through the weekend, not only here but what also takes place in San Diego. Once we get beyond (next week’s series at Arizona), we’ll see what the landscape...

We’re to the point where you’d like to see some improvement. I don’t really think we’ll see any improvement from him sitting on the sideline.

There’s no closer in baseball that’s perfect, though we lost one (Gagne) who’s as close to being one as there is. Brazoban has done a great job.

If he does come back, there’s a zero percent change that he’ll be his full self, … No chance.

One of the (enterprise zone) incentives that would help us out is that there’s no sales tax on new construction materials,

I’ve seen Ray Sadler do nothing in the outfield except to do everything well.

Having been there myself a year ago, seeing some of these champagne parties is pretty painful, … To the point where I don’t want to watch.

It’s not about the velocity. What impressed me was the movement Oliver had with his fastball in the hitting zone. He pitched great. He pitched like the ace of a staff.

He’s been very impressive. He’s really shown himself well.

I learned that from Don. He had everything covered down to the nth degree. You also always knew where you stood because of his communication skills.

To me, he’s one of the game’s best pitching coaches in the National or American leagues. He has not only the ability to teach the physical aspects of the game, but also the ability to...

His record wasn’t all that impressive, but I’ve seen this guy do very well at times. And I think the opportunity to acquire somebody in the Rule 5 draft … it’s not all that often...

It’s unique. It also is something that other organizations would like to have.

There does come a point in time that reality sets in. The awareness factor, I think it really came to light [during] the series in San Francisco.

It can start to happen as quickly as [the players] want it to because they’re going to hear it every day,

I’m glad we got out of it without anyone getting hurt.

This whole weekend shows how great a sports town Pittsburgh is. The people here really care about these teams.

This is a pretty significant addition. This is a very consistent, solid ballplayer, and I’m very happy to be getting him.

He’s a great athlete and a heck of a baseball player. You’ve got to like his future.