Ron Gardenhire Quotes (302 Quotes)

It's not going to be a very good day. We've had people who have played very well who we're going to have to send down. Sometimes, you can have a great spring, and it's just not going to work out roster-wise.

I think he's just missing the ball a little bit right now. He's close to whacking it a little bit. I don't worry about him, he's a veteran and he knows how to hit. He'll get his hits.

You'd like to just be able to cancel everything and shut it down but that's not the way the world works. And we understand. We all have a job to do. You can guarantee our hearts are right there with Puck and the family. ... We all know where Puck is going to be. He's going to be up there whacking the ball.

We made a good stand here against some very good baseball teams. We're .500 against four teams that are going to be contending for the playoffs. That's not bad from the way we started.

You've got to look for some kind of positive. You can't be negative and screaming every night. You'll chew yourself up.

That's why getting some people up here is going to help. Maybe a couple power arms like a (Travis) Bowyer and maybe a (Francisco) Liriano will help take the pressure off as we go here into September, where we don't have to kill those guys.

He was ready. He stepped into a good situation. It was fun to see.

We actually scored six runs out there today, and most of the time when we score six that's good enough for our pitching to stop them. It just didn't work today. They were swinging, and we didn't make enough good pitches.

I don't want to talk J. C, we're talking Twins baseball. Me and J. C. are fine. We've done our business.

It will probably happen tomorrow night on the grass, where I feel more comfortable doing that. The best-case scenario is left, because that's where he's most comfortable at. But he's been working out there in right and I told him to take fly balls out there to mix him in there with the other guys.

Disappointing ballgame for us, ... I really don't know what to say about it, to tell you the truth.

It did hit me this year after Jacque Jones signed with the Cubs that I've got Torii as the last guy of position players left from when I started managing. Four years and only one position player -- that's amazing.

We have time, but if we push it another week, it's going to be iffy. I'm starting to worry a little bit.

We're struggling a bit right now, trying to find our way and trying to get healthy at the same time early in the year. We've got a lot of baseball left, so hopefully we'll right the ship in the next few series and play a little better baseball, pitching and defense.

It's true he's a little bit behind of where he would normally be. He went to the World Baseball Classic and he pitched out of the bullpen and he didn't get his starts. But you also have to remember that he had the knee surgery, pitched a little bit this winter, then goes right into the World Baseball Classic. That's not making excuses. He had good stuff tonight, but he's not exactly perfect right now with his location or as good as we've seen him.

We're really happy with where he's at. He needs to go down and get some consistent at-bats on an everyday basis.

Lew is fine wherever you put him. He's going to play like Lew, he's going to hustle, run balls out and hopefully some of his balls will fall in. Last year he wasn't as lucky as he had been the year before. A lot of times hits will go down to being lucky, and this past year he wasn't quite as lucky.

Before he got hurt, he was a pretty good hitter. Hehad great hands and a very quick bat. He seemed to know what he was doing.

Rather than sit and say, 'This is going to be our staff,' we're going to hold off here. We like the people that are out here, but we have to wait and see. There are all kinds of possibilities, so we don't want to say this is it.

All we're hoping is that he doesn't hurt himself.

This hasn't righted the ship. We're still an under-.500 team. But it's a good feeling.

How many hits did they have They can kill the ball. We have to figure a way to slow them down.

He gets a little wound up here, no doubt. Hopefully we can calm him down a little tonight.

This is serious, very serious, and a lot of people are going to learn from this. We're going to help him get through this thing and make him understand how serious this is. He wants to face the penalty, and that's the right thing to do.

We just got here, give it a day.

It didn't look good. He could barely walk and he told me the brace really bothered him. You never knew if he was going to wear that brace all the timeor if he was going to get out of it. He was killing the ball at the plate, but he could hardly get to first base.

It was a nice win on a very ugly night and tough conditions.

We talked about it and moved them over a couple steps last night, but we're going to have to do better than that. You have to make adjustments based on who's pitching. If the ball goes through that hole a couple of times, then why don't we just move over so we can stop it

He looked like he was on a mission. He wasn't going to give us anything.

He's the best player I ever saw on the field, without a doubt.

Boy, there's a big Liriano watch, huh ... We're all about winning games right now. It's got to be a good situation. I'm not planning on putting him in a close ballgame and putting him in a situation where he could fail or hurt our ballclub by being nervous.

Being on the bench for these games won't help them get ready for season. We are thin at the infield spots, so we are very happy to have these guys stay here.

I think the second time around we'll see where we're at here.

Now we are trying to get back up there and see if we can get back in the playoffs, so we're chasing them. They chased us for a few years and we're chasing them right now.

You could tell he got frustrated after the big one out there in the gap, where he gives up three more. You know he's frustrated and then he makes a couple more pitches up and they hit a couple of bullets off him. So he's just frustrated right now. He makes a good pitch, they hit it, makes a bad pitch, they hit it. It's just not working out for him right now.

Tough loss for us. We pitched good enough to win. We didn't score enough runs.

I'm not going to punish a guy just because he's going to the world games. It's quite an honor. But it does make it a little bit more difficult. I'm not going to evaluate him while he's in the world games. I'll be evaluating my guys here.

He was restarting his life out there. He was thinking about getting married again. We were trying to convince him to come back and put the uniform on again, and we were getting close.

Every time you start trying to figure something out, somebody gets whacked. So we're just going to let it go down to the end.

I wouldn't be afraid to start any of those guys on Tuesday.

You know it's fun to see some things happening a little bit. It hasn't been great, we know it's not going to be a perfect situation or scenario because our expectations were one place and we didn't reach them. But you always have to look for positives. You're playing every night and that's what we've been trying to do.

He feels better about himself. He's confident -- the whole package. And he's playing good. We thought he would bounce back and play well.

We don't know where to go from here, but it was a nice night.

He gets a little raging bull out there sometimes. He's got to calm down. But we saw everything we expected to and more. To say he's ready for the big leagues, yeah, if we were in absolute need, he'd be fine. But we're not going to rush him.

We've played well defensively. We don't miss too many balls there.

It's hard for a young player to figure out what pitchers are doing and make adjustments.

That's your shining light right now. Maybe this is a cure all. Maybe we'll come home and play better baseball. Sometime we are going to have to figure out a way to play better on the road, too, but first come home and play good baseball and then go from there.

There's concern with everybody. What if one of your pitchers ends up in the bullpen How is he going to be ready for the season without getting innings

All you can see is how he does. I don't want to punish a kid for something like that. It's quite an honor. He might be pitching great for the world games, but I might have a guy here that's blowing people away every time he gets the ball. What are you going to do That makes it tough on all parties.

Absolutely fine. We let them know Puckett played the game the right way, and that's how we expect everyone to play it. You should be very proud to be a Minnesota Twin and learn from a lot of our past players.