Dave Duncan Pitches Quotations

He was struggling with his delivery and his control. His pitches weren't sharp. But I told him it's a great sign because you're going to have 10, 12, 15 games during the season when it just isn't working. A lot of guys give in to that. But he didn't. He kept battling.

He's a location and change of speeds pitcher. It takes a little time during the spring to get all of your pitches going and get comfortable with them. He's doing good.

It depends a lot on who the fifth guy is. You have to consider how long he's going to be sitting out before he pitches again, No. 1, and what benefits you're looking to gain from that.

I think he's always at his best when he pitches aggressively. I think that, if anything, that's what he's done, with the exception of a couple starts in there where he might not have been as aggressive as I'd like to see him. But for the most part, that's what he's done. He's pitched aggressively.

I think he's getting there. He made a lot of good pitches today. The ball was down for the most part. He got the ball in on the right-handers when he needed to and he got his split-finger over the plate.

He throws four pitches for strikes, he keeps the ball down, gets a lot of ground balls and he's a strikeout pitcher. He's got a lot of innings pitched in the minor leagues and ... he has developed the consistency that's needed to pitch at this level. We feel it's important he get his feet on the ground up here (in St. Louis) for the time in the future when he's a starter.

All the pitches they got hurt on were belt high. I don't like it, but I understand it. Next time out, we hope to be seeing guys take another step forward, making more quality pitches, get them in that mode.