John Gibbons Time Quotations

Obviously, it's a great thing to honor your country and to get that type of experience on such a big stage, but we're a little bit selfish in wanting those guys back as soon as possible. With so many new faces in camp this year, ideally you'd like to have all of them around as much as possible to establish chemistry and continuity in your lineup. But it's a great experience for Vernon, who's getting the most playing time of anyone.

Ideally we would have our whole team here the whole time because we have such a new look and so many new faces. But it's for the good of the game, so you just deal with it.

But there's not a lot of time left (in the season), so I don't know yet what it means.

We looked like a team tonight. It's the first time we have had our whole lineup out there and, yeah, the pitching was solid.

He tweaked his quad a couple of days ago lifting. He'll have to take it easy for a week, two weeks. He still has plenty of time to get ready.

He's been swinging the bat good. He started the season with us because he had such a big Spring Training. We like the kid a lot, and we think he's going to have a good big league career. We're going to give him some playing time this month, and he's taking advantage of it.

Our bullpen came up big time tonight. Gustavo struggled. He might be getting a little tired. He's closing in on that 200-inning marker. His last couple of starts, his ball has been up.

I think he may be a little tired, to be honest with you. He's in his first year doing it. I think what's affecting him right now is his location -- and you usually don't see it in velocity, you see it in location. ... At this time of year, definitely, you've got to make sure you don't just throw him out there when he may not be at his best.

I think that's common knowledge. Maybe not, but it's going to be soon. Great experience -- they love to work and everybody gets along. You'll run into some staffs where everybody doesn't see eye-to-eye and there's a little separation. With this group, everybody has a good time together and we're not afraid to disagree.

We'll look at it and see who is pitching the best when that time comes. The thing that he does is give us flexibility. If he's in the bullpen, he makes us that much stronger down there. But if he keeps doing what he's doing ...

We had some good at-bats and some clutch hitting there in the ninth. That's the first time we ever did anything with Baez this year.

Preliminary exams say the same thing. We'll let (Dr. Andrews) determine that and then go from there. It's big. The second time it's happened to him. You've got to move on. We've just got to hold down the fort and hopefully he's not out for any length of time.

Any time you lose a Gold Glove, that's a hit. But that allowed us to make that trade. We saw Hill play enough second base, and he was good. If we had any doubts, that might have changed our mind about making a move or not.

Every time you run them out there, you have a chance to win. That's all you can ask for.

The last couple years, the injuries were costly for him, and they set him back and cost him valuable playing time at that stage of his development. It's a good opportunity. He needed a fresh start.

It's big, it's the second time it's happened to him. Nothing you can do about it, you've got to move on. . . . He was throwing good, he was throwing hard.

It was good to have him back out there. He wasn't as sharp, but it's been two weeks. He's fine. He's healthy. He feels good. Any time you pitch against this team, I don't care how good you are, they test you. They make you earn everything you get and he did a nice job for us.

It'll help his hitting, too. Sometimes when you spend too much time on the bench, too much goes on in your mind. But he's a good fielder, too.

Any time he goes out there, you can count on him. At times he's been the odd man out but he's as good a competitor as there is.

Any time he goes out there, you know you can count on him, ... If you look at the last couple of years, he's always won for us but he's been kind of the odd man out, but he forces his way in there and knows how to win.

The home run he hit, when hits balls to the left side, he's usually out in front and hooking them into the stands, but he kept that one fair. I can't remember the last time I saw him hit a ball like that down the line.

It's kind of a natural progression. The guy's got the stuff. He's starting to believe in himself, too. The first time up -- rookie year or whatever -- until you establish yourself, you're never sure if you belong. You feel like you almost live and die with every outing.

The more we saw him out there, we figured, 'It's time to put him in there.' And we may have held on to him a little bit long, not playing against lefties early. ... Russ? He just keeps getting better and better.

He pitched some good games in August, too, and didn't get a decision. But that's good. That's No. 12, and it was a long time coming.