We feel good about sending Doug out. Doug has always pitched very well against Pittsburgh. He’s a guy that you like to have on the mound.

He pitched very, very well. He was very determined, had good stuff and was on the attack and pitched a great game.

He had very good stuff. He had an outstanding (split-finger fastball). He’s working one expanding (his strike zone) a little bit.

He`s not throwing strikes, … He`s throwing from behind. With his stuff, pitching ahead is the key.

They opened my eyes, offensively, to the fact that they were capable of being big league players, and they opened eyes, defensively, and showed us that they weren’t ready to be big league players.

Pitch counts have gotten into everybody’s brain. Guys make so much money now. You want to protect your investment. You don’t want to abuse your pitchers.

I think we all were (impressed). There’s some reason why he has jumped three levels in a year and a half. You could see why today.

J.J. is going to hit some home runs. He’s not a Punch-and-Judy hitter. Both of the home runs he has hit (this week) have been big for us.

He’s a very mature young man who has a chance to be a real offensive force. He’s a pure hitter. He grew up in this game, and he’s ready for his chance at stardom.

We’ll have a better idea Wednesday.

You don’t really sit there and count them down. There was some confusion on the bench if there were four or five home runs.

It’s been bothering him every game since (Aug. 18), … It’s something he probably could play through, but that doesn’t make any sense at this point. We need him to be what he can be.

He’s as tough as they come. He doesn’t make mistakes.

He’s a good pitcher having a bad year. And the good pitcher in him came out tonight.

That was the plan all along. We were going to get him out of it, get him comfortable and put him back in the five.

I’m not going to sit here and say we’re going to fight for the wild-card next year. As good as St. Louis is, that’s something we want. We want to fight for the division championship.

It’s tough when you start the season with the workload that he had.

I think he feels like he’s got a better supporting cast around him this year, and he doesn’t have to carry the team on his back.

We said all along that he would probably struggle in the first half and take off in the second half. That’s what’s happened.

His ability to handle people,

(Cappy) had pretty good stuff but he fell back behind and you can’t do that against St.Louis. We’re glad we could get the win for him.

That cost us a run. We had a couple things that didn’t go right tonight, but we won.

He won a game for us there. Leave him there.

There’s no doubt that Billy has the credentials to be a Major League pitching coach. [Castro and Maddux] work together, and you have to work together for this to work. It’s a huge advantage for...

Tommy was vintage. He was as good as I’ve seen him in a long time.

You can’t use it very often.

It was a big win right there. Prince takes care of business like that. It worked out just great.

I knew it was something we had to do,

The room is my friend, not my enemy. I don’t get cabin fever.

One run there is a huge run, … You give up five, but you still have 27 cracks at a young kid.

That’s one thing about the Cardinals, they’re not going to lay down and die. Even after we scored seven runs I wasn’t comfortable. They can put runs on the board in a hurry.

With Doug’s extension, it sends a good signal to the team that we’re going to be here. We’ve got a good start on this and we want to keep building to a championship team.

He was really hyped up. He never got in a groove. He was overthrowing and he couldn’t make the adjustment. It’s the first day and it’s tough on the young kids.

I think there will be a lot of excitement in spring training next year.

That was pretty good damage control.

You get the adrenaline going. The first time out, it happens.

They’re one of the elite teams in the league. Any time that you play the measuring stick, you want to beat them.

I’d say his chances improved. There are still things that could change. It’s not set. It could be set but it’s not. We’ve still got options yet.

When things aren’t going you’re way, funny things happen, and it’s not much funnier than that.

That is the class of the National League for the last 14 years. It’s pretty big. We’ve never even won a series at home against them, much less a sweep. We played good, consistent baseball...

He’s learning all kinds of stuff. He’s seeing what life’s like in the big leagues. He accomplished everything he needed to accomplish in Triple-A.

We’ve got the nucleus of our team in place. These young players … we haven’t scratched the surface of what they’ll be able to accomplish.

He had enough savvy to get through it.

I told him I didn’t want to take him out of the game. I wanted to give him an opportunity to get through the inning so we could score some runs for him and get...

Carlos is one of those special guys. When the lights go on, he’s ready to go.

He said the back of his shoulder was tight. He said he wanted to go back out there but the best thing was to shut him down. We don’t want to take any chances.

He said he was impressed with us.

I just felt like Dana was going to get them out.

He (Davis) pitched a great game for us.

J.J. has been outstanding. We have turned some nice double plays already (nine in three games). He’s been great.