Bob Melvin Quotes (221 Quotes)

I know he's had his struggles at times in the second half here, but we've seen that game many times, where he's taking us into the eighth inning, giving them very few hits, and is economical with his pitches. It's tough to take him out at times.

It was certainly a good day to hit out there, and a difficult day to pitch. The wind was really blowing and carrying to all fields.

If you've watched him with the position players, it's not that surprising he can hit balls over the backdrop in center field. He has the right approach, as he showed going the other way. He's just way beyond his years.

He was throwing a lot of sliders in fastball counts and was almost effectively wild with his fastball. He got good movement on it, and he's always had a delivery where he hides the ball pretty well. You just don't really get a real good feeling on a certain spot, where he's going to throw the ball.

I don't think he's comfortable doing that. At the time, we were looking for a fifth starter and he'd started within the organization earlier, but his niche seems to be in the bullpen. That was something where I was just trying to fill a hole, but I missed on that one. Oscar is a bullpen guy.

What he's meant to us and what he does in the middle of games, you certainly can't minimize that.

We continued to battle, and got their closer in the game. If you keep battling and put yourself in position enough times, you're going to come through.

I wouldn't have double-switched and taken Hudson out of the game right there if we didn't have confidence in him. That was big for Andy, because he's the one guy that hasn't gotten a start. He feels like he's a contributor now. He feels a little more part of it.

What most developers and builders don't fully realize is that we have another choice.

Casey Daigle is really starting to climb the ladder around here.

I thought when I was asked about Vazquez Friday that someone knew something about the injury. He doesn't want anybody to know about it -- he just goes out there and does his thing.

That might have been the best at-bat we've had this spring. To go down 0-2 like that and battling back ... he's a guy that is intriguing. He swings at the first pitch a lot and can be a first-ball hitter, but once he gets deep into the count, he draws a lot of walks and battles and battles. That is mental toughness is what it is.

He's not going back to the bench tomorrow. He's been great, quality at-bats every time.

He's impressing everybody in this camp a lot.

His power surprises me. Obviously, he's got some leverage because of his height, but he keeps impressing. (Friday) he swung at a bad-pitch slider, he made the adjustment, they threw him another slider and he made it travel a little bit. He hit it a long way into the wind.

We've seen a lot of good things out of Lance this year. Obviously, recently in the last month, he hasn't been as good, but he was a savior for us there for a while. So it would be nice to be able to give him some confidence, a few outings where he feels confident again and get him back out there where we can use him later in a game, too.

If we finished the year at a 2.60 ERA, I'd probably be surprised. But certainly, that was something that everyone was kind of looking at to be our Achilles' heel right away. And so far, six games into the season, we feel pretty good about where our pitching is.

This didn't change our feelings at all. We feel he can be a big-league guy. I wouldn't hesitate to have him on my staff if there was room. But sometimes you've got to wait your turn.

I think he's ready. He's spent a lot of time here and has a great reputation in the organization. We think very highly of him.

Since he's come back, he's made every play possible -- balls up the middle, diving plays deep in the hole.

It's going to have to be an organizational decision that we talk about at the end of the season.

We worked very well together. He seemed to know what my train of thought was most of the time.

We know it's going to be a dogfight. It makes it that much more exciting that we win these last two games, knowing we're not 7 12 back going in there. Five and a half is still a little lengthy.

He shows good plate awareness, goes the other way, doesn't try to do too much. With two strikes, he would shorten up a little bit and try to put the ball in play the other way -- a lot of things you don't see in an 18-year-old kid. I think he goes down to the Minor League camp with a lot more confidence, not that he didn't have any, but to know already that he can hit here, I'm sure will serve him very well.

He's been in enough big league dugouts and in enough big league games to understand what it takes. And I'm sure this year has gone a long way for him, too. . . . It'll certainly be in the offing down the road, whether it's sooner or later.

Health always has a lot to say with how your season ends up. You hate to wish it on anybody, and you certainly don't want it to happen to your club. We've been pretty fortunate so far.

Just talking to him and looking at him, he certainly doesn't look like an 18-year-old. One of the things we talked about today was, how do you handle a Justin Upton The consensus was that you don't have to take it easy on this guy.

Those are two areas we're going to look at. We have some decisions to make with our free agents obviously. All of this will be talked about in the coming days.

He tracks the ball. He doesn't panic. He doesn't get out on his front foot. He lets the ball travel.

When you have a long career, there are going to be down years. He's not happy with the year he had. He expected more and we expected more. I absolutely think he'll be better this year.

He's got a little bit of an issue that might actually even be more important than baseball. He might be going back and forth, depending on how she is. That drive can get old, but he's got a little incentive to do it.

If he was a starter, I'd be a little bit more concerned. He's a reliever and we've got plenty of time to get him ready.

You can use that to your advantage too, knowing what your deficiencies are and what the catcher may try to go after right away. It's always a chess match, and that's why guys that stay in the big leagues and are successful for a long time make adjustments constantly from day-to-day.

Those games don't feel very good. You usually have one or two a spring. That doesn't mean they feel any better. Defensively, offensively, the whole bit, just a lousy day.

I'm trying to get him out there as much as we can to give him an extra at-bat and an extra inning or two. And he wants it.

That was a huge play. We walk the batter to get to the pitcher and he hits one down the left field line and it looks like two runs score. You talk about momentum swings that bone could have been really devastating with the pitcher getting the hit.

I'm really at a loss for words after Tuesday's game, and following it up with a game like this and three out of four. I don't think I've ever seen at the big-league level three out of four games like this.

(Vargas) threw the ball well. Velocity was good and he pounded the bottom part of the zone, which we've been stressing to him.

That's the worst three innings of baseball I've seen at the big-league level. But to come back like that was just as impressive as bad as those three innings were.

Outstanding. His velocity is back up there, around 94 (mph), and he seemed to add and subtract better on his breaking ball today.

We're not even getting good swings, let alone getting hits, and then once you add on like that, it seems like it can take the tension out a little bit and everyone relaxes a little bit.

He handles the bat very well, hits the ball to all fields. I've already hit and run with him a couple of times this spring, and he's done a nice job.

He's tough to deal with, even for low-ball pitchers, because he's such a good low-ball hitter.

It wasn't particularly good, he wasn't as sharp as he was in his last outing. It kind of snowballed on him. Chalk it up to spring training.

Both of them pitched well enough to make the team, no question about it.

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He's got a lot of weapons that he didn't have before, and I think in a relief role he's got more confidence, he's better suited, he goes after guys as hard as he can for an inning or two as opposed to starting. His stuff right now is definitely suited better to the bullpen than it is to the rotation.

You always wind up needing more than five starters. When you think of a rotation, you can't just look at it as five guys.

His breaking ball was better today. He showed us, here especially in this start, that we didn't bring him up too soon.

A lot of times, it's one or two at-bats that swing the game one way or the other, and that was certainly the case.