Jim Tracy Pitch Quotations

The pitch was up and in. In that case, you just try to make sure the pitch hits more helmet than face.

He is on a mission to pitch himself into this rotation, and right now he is succeeding.

Go ahead and take that gun. What was important was the life of the pitch when it's entering the hitting area. That was as good as I've seen him.

Ian Snell made an adjustment from what he was doing early on and got the ball down to where he could be very effective. He forced the opposition to have to swing the bat. He got himself some early-count outs. As a result, he kept his pitch count in order and was able to go through the fourth inning.

Pitch the ball, catch it and put it into play, you're going to have to show me that it doesn't work, because I've seen it work. We have the components in this clubhouse to make it work, I really believe that.

I thought he battled. He didn't have his breaking ball until his last two innings. That's a tough club to pitch against with basically just your fastball.

When the first pitch of the game gets thrown, we've got four games to try to win. I'm certainly interested in doing that now that I am sitting in this office.

Zach Duke deserves to pitch the home opener in Pittsburgh. He's earned that right.

I'm not advocating taking a ball on the first pitch every time up there. A couple of times (yesterday), the first pitch was there, and we swung at it. But I'm continuing to see these guys take smart approaches to hitting, and that's encouraging.

I'm not advocating we take the first pitch every time we walk up there. But, if you're going to take a swing at a first pitch, have it be a really good swing. If we keep preaching that, there won't have to be a whole lot said if you make a weak out on a marginally bad first pitch. It's not the way you play winning baseball.

I'm not sitting here suggesting that guys don't get hits on an 0-2 or a 1-2 pitch ... but ordinarily, on 0-2, you don't see balls get hammered. When you come up through a minor-league system, you know early on that when you get a hitter 0-2, a ball sitting right in the middle of the plate is not a very good location.

You've got to be able to pitch and you've got to be able to catch the ball. If you can't, you probably won't be very good.

They got a home run in the first inning from a very special player. But beyond that, we matched them pitch for pitch and play for play.

He's on a mission to pitch himself into the starting rotation and right now he's succeeding.