Curt Schilling Quotes (111 Quotes)

I don't give two (expletive) when Manny shows up. He'll be ready to play. I don't care. He'll be ready. One thing Manny does is put in his time and effort into getting ready. On (Opening Day) April 3, he'll be here and ready to hit.

It's very simple for him right now from a thought-process standpoint. That job is a challenge. He's throwing strikes. He's commanding the ball and he's got dominating stuff. When you can command and have dominating stuff, you can do the things he's doing.

I know guys who use and don't admit it because they think it means they don't work hard. And I know plenty of guys now are mixing steroids with human growth hormone. Those guys are pretty obvious.

Somebody on this team wants me to get booed to make them feel better, and that really bothers me a lot,

I'm not trying to hit people, but at the same time hitters were very comfortable facing me last year, much more so last year than any year in the past. But there's something you can do about that as a pitcher and you've got to be proactive and do it.

I felt as strong when I came out of the game as I did when I went in. To go out against a kid that's throwing the ball as well as Brandon threw the ball today, there's no margin of error.

I know that people are going to bash the guy in the manager's office for leaving me out there, but I felt great. I know myself. It had come down to I didn't make my pitches.

It was just fun. It was one of the few times I remember as a Big Leaguer where you can actually enjoy the moment and feel and have fun.

Warming up for the second inning, I threw my split-finger and everything clicked. The first two starts, I haven't felt like I've been consistently bearing the pitch well and I didn't feel like I've been throwing it at a good angle. And I threw it and it was exactly what I wanted it to be from a feel standpoint. And mentally, I was like, 'There it is.' From that point on, when I needed a strikeout, I felt very comfortable about command, fastball-wise, and about the fact I could bury my split in the ground.

Any time you go against Greg, runs are going to be at a premium. I don't care what his numbers say, ... He and I have pitched some games in the past just like this. You have to do everything correct fundamentally. You just have to push to be the first team to score.

I'll tell you this, ... If I go out every time from here on out and feel like I did last night, I'll win more than I lose. And when we get to October, I'll be the pitcher I was last year and the year before.

I take a lot of pride in where I sit in the rotation. After Opening Days over, its over. But theres something to it for me. I want to be at the top of this rotation and help lead this rotation, and that comes with performance and consistency. I havent done that for almost two years now.

It always makes a difference, when you get a lead early in the game. Every run early on is just a mistake you can make later.

This was a big swing game. This late in the season, that's a big deal.

I think they understand what it is we get paid to do. We get paid to win a world championship - period. We don't get paid to play well or whatever. We get paid to win a world championship. And to have the best possible chance they can have at that, they need to be healthy in September. They understand that.

From the outset I didn't feel like I had very good command of my fastball. I threw some good splits, I thought I hung two and they got hit. But I had real spotty command of my fastball.

I have to be good, ... If it comes down to my final start of the season and I have to start, that's probably going to decide whether we make the postseason or not, so it doesn't matter how I feel about where I am. I have to be there.

I don't hide my feelings, but when it comes to illness, I guess I don't panic. My father was the same way. I'm the provider for the family and the caretaker. If I panic, who is anybody going to run to?

I care what people think, but that doesn't change what I say. I am who I am.

I think he's a guy that you benefit a lot more from getting 200 innings out of than 60. Makeup-wise, he's not far from being a consistent winner in the big leagues.

After the second inning, I was as down as I've been in a long, long time, ... Emotionally frustrated. I was at a crossroads where I could continue to beat myself down or make adjustments.

I tried to sequence some pitches and approaches as if I was facing big league hitters. But I pitched, and I haven't done that in a long, long time, since early 2004, without other questions going on.

I had no idea how many I threw. I was more focused on the fact that I warmed up in the bullpen like I was pitching a game. Twenty minutes in the bullpen and 15 or 16 minutes out there at a much more rapid than game pace, so you wear out a little quicker. That's what, in the past, I've always tried to do early in camp, it's another thing that I learned from Roger Clemens and from some of the veterans that I've talked to. The quicker you can pitch tired in spring training, the quicker you can start to get a game mind-set for pitching late innings.

I feel great today, ... I'm not sore, my ankle feels great. I haven't felt like this since last April, before I hurt my ankle. I don't have any limitations from a preparation standpoint or a work standpoint.

In the fifth inning I thought I got more comfortable. I didn't throw my first split until the ninth hitter of the game, which is not something that happens to me a lot. I only think I threw three in the first four innings. A lot of that was confidence. I didn't feel real comfortable with it.

There's nothing that doesn't impress me from stuff to makeup to poise to command. All of it. He's as advertised. He's as good a kid off the field as he is on right now, too.

The most important to me is, Theo is a good person first and foremost. And I think that has a lot to do with it. He's not deceitful. He's an honest guy, a good guy. There's a lot more to this thing than it being a job for him, being born and raised here, the Red Sox being as important as they are to him. Above all else, Theo understands he's a compromiser. Theo understands that the clubhouse is our home. He doesn't invade that privacy often. When he does, he doesn't make you uncomfortable and that says as much about him as anything.

I feel good and ready to go. If they're ready for me to get back, I'm ready to get back there. I hope to see action, maybe we'll be ahead by a large enough score that I won't be needed, but that's the hope.

It's no mystery what he wants and I think that (the Red Sox ) are going to do what they can do to make sure that happens.

On a personal level, that's not the kind of situation I want to be in, having to relearn someone or have someone learn me at this point in my career. But this is one of those nothing-you-can-do-about-it situations. ... The priority is and the important part is Dave is OK.

The only disappointment is from my end. People will bash the manager for leaving me in there, but it came down to me not making pitches. It was personally disappointing, but a great team win.

Knowing that Joe has pitched as well as he has, it had nothing to do with him facing us the first time. He's been throwing the ball great. It felt like it was going to be a tight game, and then I gave up two runs in about two minutes, before anybody's even sitting in their seats. ... I couldn't afford to make a mistake after that.

I came in after that second inning as down as I have been in a long, long time,

I've made a living for 15 years with my command, and it's something I've always prided myself on and Thursday night, the good pitches I thought I made that got hit didn't get hit at somebody, and the bad pitches all got hit hard, ... Part of the mental grind for me right now is trying to get past that and not make excuses.

I thought it was a little inconsistent today, ... but today was just location. I just left a lot of balls in the middle of the plate.

Without David, we don't make the postseason. David made an enormous impact on this team, and you can't understate his impact in the clubhouse. Congratulations to Alex. Either one of them could have won it. Both had MVP years.

Today was probably as bad a fastball physically as I've felt like I've had all spring. Regardless of my emotions coming out of this game or how I feel about everything. I've got to be ready to go Monday.

I did some things better, ... The first pitch of the game I left the ball out over the middle of the plate, and Manny made a huge play.

I wasn't trying to hit him in the head. I don't play the game that way. I've got to pitch in. This is the only place I'll get comfortable doing it, making it part of my game plan and taking it into the season. I promise you there are very few people in this world who have stepped in the box in the last seven or eight years against Pedro Martinez that haven't thought about the fastball in. I'm definitely not one of those guys from a pitching standpoint because I've had so much success away.

I don't think it's any one thing. It happened at the same time last year.

I didn't feel any different physically than I have felt in the past, ... We used all my pitches. I got outs with all of them. We located better today. I think that's obvious.

Our offense is so good, ... We've been bad pitching-wise for five months and we've managed to win more than we've lost.

Today was very much a struggle for me from a consistency standpoint. I did struggle, command-wise, getting ahead. I had trouble being consistent tonight. I take solace in the fact that when we needed to make some pitches, early in the game, we made 'em.

It's a loss. I can't search for things and try to figure things out at the expense of this ball club. Not now. Not in August. Not with a 2 12-game lead. Tonight was a night when I certainly had the stuff to win and just did not execute.

No, it's September. It's time to win. We lost.

If I thought about how I felt last year in my best start and ranked it, today was in a different stratosphere from a physical standpoint.

You can't go out and push people to do something you're not doing yourself. I'm getting paid a ridiculous amount of money to do what I do for a living, and there's no reason why I wouldn't give.

I think I can help us win one, but if I don't get back and throw dominating baseball, this team can still win a World Series.

I don't have an explanation for it. I just know the first three innings, I was pitching. We had a game plan and I was moving the ball, making my pitches. Then all of a sudden, I could feel it. When I threw a couple pitches in the fourth inning, I knew I had something extra on them.

It happens all the time, guys all over the big leagues show up at different times. He'll be ready to play. Manny's one of those guys who if he didn't show up for spring training, I'd still know he'd be ready for the season when the season started.