It's a good thing to see. You want to be cautious about where they are, not push too hard, let them work at their own pace, but you like to see them out there throwing a baseball.

Zach Duke did a good job. He had to battle, obviously.

As long as he keeps his focus and continues to realize there is no real opportunity to be satisfied and he maintains that hunger, ... he could wind up being a real good pitcher in the Major Leagues.

At some point in time you always face a little adversity. The good clubs overcome things like this.

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

Things are going to be done differently than they've been done in the past, I can promise you that. And it's going to be different in a good way.

First of all, I happen to think he was a pretty good player before he was selected to play for his country. I don't need to see him go play for Mexico to see that. But, absolutely, it can be a confidence-building experience.

Did the starting pitcher give you a chance every fifth day to go out there and win? -- that's the biggest element I look at. (Santos) was pretty good at that last year.

Every team needs people like that. It's not just what he does as a third base coach, and I happen to be believe he's very good at what he does. Having this guy as a buffer between my office and the clubhouse ... that's huge.

We did a good job of coming back against a very good ballclub.

This was a pretty good example of it.

Tonight was, in my opinion, dramatically better than what we saw in Florida. In Florida, he battled, but his fastball command was erratic. Tonight, it was crisp, it was good to both sides of the plate. It's a big step forward for him.

We had something going on in the fifth, it looked like we had a chance to get back in the game, but they cut the inning off. We took some good at-bats off him, we created some opportunity for ourselves ... but from watching him, he's got a crisp fastball and his breaking ball also is very sharp.

We have three good catchers. Our attitude is we're looking forward to seeing what they can do.

That was as good an at-bat as we've seen taken all year.

I thought he had a very good workout. ... I think it's a good one to build on. His next time out, you get him out there a little bit further, he's set up to go for Opening Day.

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.

Pitching and defense has been the name of the game in baseball forever. I don't care what level you're playing at. My philosophy since I started managing has been that, before you can look at any other phases, you've got to feel fairly comfortable that you've got some people who can pitch and you've got to be able to catch the ball. If you can't do either one, your chances of being very good are slim.

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

I thought he did a nice job; he battled and made some good pitches when he had to.

It could end up being a good thing and relieve some tightness,

He was fine. He was up in the zone early and pitched from behind more than I'd like, but he had good stuff.

He was real good early, and then his command wavered some there in the fourth and fifth inning. The next hurdle that he needs to overcome is to maintain the consistency of his delivery throughout the course of his start. He's making strides.

We made the most of three first-inning runs. The reason: Derek Lowe. For the fourth game in a row, he's been phenomenal. Not good, not great, but phenomenal. I can not say enough good things about Derek Lowe.