Mark Connor Quotes (25 Quotes)

I was happy with Padilla. He got through two innings, no problem. He threw strikes for the most part. His mechanics were a little off, but he still got through it. It is the first time out for these guys.

I had him get after it. I'm just trying to make him concentrate more in every situation, have a purpose for everything. I was giving him certain outs, counts, scores, to see what he would do with it.

He threw really good. It's the first time he felt like everything came together.

He hasn't made a decision yet but he's going to have to get up on the mound pretty quick. I wouldn't want him to go pitch if he hasn't seen any hitters or thrown all his pitches. I'm not worried yet. He said he felt better today. But I'm not sure he's ready to get on the mound.

Through my years, I've felt a closer needed to pitch about 20 innings in the spring. But I like the course Coco is on. As long as he keeps building up and feeling good, I think he'll be fine.

I thought he was pretty good. Coming out of spring training, he turned the dial up with his intensity, with his stuff. He made a couple of bad pitches, obviously, but I thought he could have been out of that fifth inning and it's 2-0 ... a couple of balls hit hard and that's about it.

We laid it out on the table for him, what his situation was, and to his credit, he's done everything he possibly could do to get back. He's bigger and stronger. We thought his weight was down last year, and it may have affected his velocity.

The ball was moving good today. He was throwing it over the plate. If he does that, he'll get people out. There's progress each time out.

It just depends on his command and how he's feeling, as far as how long he'll stay there. We want him healthy.

Right now he's getting ahead of hitters and throwing three pitches for strikes. That's what a starting pitcher needs to do.

In a perfect world, I'd like to start him out in a Minor League game and by the end of the spring get him some 'A' games to get his adrenaline popping a little bit.

That is fair to say, against a pretty good lineup with a lot of left-handers and the wind blowing out to right.

I let him throw some breaking balls today for the first time. He threw about eight breaking balls, not max effort, but getting over the top of them with no problem, so we'll continue along those lines.

No, I'm not concerned about the home runs. We just wanted him to get in his 18 pitches and come out healthy. No concerns at all. He was fine. Besides, the one home run was just a pop-up that got caught in the wind.

He deserves the opportunity to be in the rotation.

I saw Rick come up with Baltimore in '01 and I liked his stuff. I haven't seen much of him since but he's got a live arm, his ball sinks and he's got a good slider. There's more in there than he's shown and I've given him a couple mechanical things that hopefully will help him.

But we had given Kim a lot of money and he was dealing at the time.

The thing about Tejeda is he has a little bit of a track record. He pitched well in the big leagues last year. In that one start for Oklahoma his head was probably spinning. We don't want to push this kid into anything he's not ready for.

He's not ready. It's his typical Spring Training regimen. If you look at his past, he basically averages eight innings in 'A' games, even back when he was in Atlanta. His first spring they pitched him 20 innings and he basically had a 10.00 ERA. It takes him a while to get going.

We're counting on him to assume a role of responsibility late in the game.

We like this kid and his stuff. This kid has got the ability to do anything in the Majors. Like Juan Dominguez, it's a matter of consistency.

He was perfect. He walked a guy that I thought he struck out. He gave up a base hit and it was probably an error. He commanded his fastball, changeup and breaking ball. I've been telling him all spring he's got the stuff to do this. He's got to believe in it and trust it.

I want him to focus on making one pitch at a time. Sometimes it looks like he's trying to make 10 pitches and pressing to a certain degree, trying to make the perfect pitch. It's hard to do this with a lot of tension, it's hard to do anything with a lot of tension. He's pressing because he expects a lot out of himself.

I told the coaches, hands off until everybody throws at least one or two times. Let them relax instead of trying to make suggestions to guys we don't know yet. They get evaluated in games, so we don't want them to do anything that will interfere with their preparations.

His face completely changes from the time he gets to the ballpark. The other four days, he's easy-going, likes to joke around, but on the fifth day, like a lot of the big-time starters I've had in the past, it's all business.