Casey Fossum Quotations

I distinctly remember Jay Gibbons hit the grand slam off me at Baltimore. I think I ended up giving up nine runs in that game. It was just a nightmare game for me. That was a good example of the snowball effect. If things go bad in the first inning, I don't want it to snowball it even more.

I faced these guys in spring training and they got me pretty good. I changed my game plan against them tonight and gave us a chance to win.

My wife, Kim, and I want to show that we care about the fans. Reaching out to the community is very important to us. It's not just about baseball.

I was just trying to make my pitches. I did basically the same thing as I did last time (against Boston). Keep the ball down and get ground balls.

I wasn't able to control the damage. One inning won the game for them. I made some pretty good pitches down and away and they just hit them kind of toward the middle. The bunt kind of threw me off and next thing I knew it was second and third. I just fell behind and made a bad pitch to Teixeira. I just wasn't good.

I was putting the ball in play and the defense made a lot of big plays behind me. It gives you a lot of confidence when you can let them hit the ball and you know they can make the play.

When I did get the call to start, it took about three games for me to build my innings up. Now, I can prepare myself to start, condition myself properly, space my throwing out, build up from the beginning this year and be ready to start. I think it's going to help me in the long run.

Welcome to the neighborhood, huh? It's a gated community. It's supposed to be safe. I'm not sure if we're even going to stay there now. We moved in at 8 o'clock (Thursday) night, and I woke up at 7 and saw this. The police said it happened between 4 and 5. Unbelievable.

Things are changing around here. It's going to be exciting, and I'm glad I'm going to be a part of it.

You gotta get ahead and stay ahead. But if they do start fouling stuff off, change the speed. For me, that's when I put my slow one in there, something to get them off what they've been doing.

A lot of things have to go right. You have to have a good defense behind you. I look at something like that, that's very hard. I could see maybe a closer doing it, someone like (Dodgers closer Eric) Gagne, if he pitched one inning at a time.

After the second inning, I just started to relax and let it go. I just tried to hold on. We finally made our move.

I mean the first one, obviously, I just flat out hit him. But the next two, I like throwing inside and I'm not going to back off. I can assure you I wasn't doing it on purpose. But that's the type of player he is.

I met him about one minute before I went out to warm up. The next thing I know, he's saving my game.

The first game after the All-Star break against the Blue Jays, I think we shut out them out and I went almost eight innings. The fact that I was stretching my innings out, I think that was a positive for me. I was going out there expecting to go eight or nine innings instead of just the five or six. I had the mentality of going eight or nine last year.

It's kind of hard to leave guys stranded at third base. I was trying to get outs. If he scored, so what? Luckily things worked out fine that inning.

It's not like I did it on purpose. I like to pitch inside, and (Reed) likes to crowd the plate. That's the type of player he is.

It's all taken care of. And by (Friday) night, security was already beefed up.

It really helped me get the ball inside on right-handed hitters more. I like to pitch inside. It's where I'm most effective.

Throw something the guys aren't looking for. I think a lot of it for me now will be if I'm able to execute a lot of my pitches. It's just a matter of figuring out what they're looking for. Over time, since I've seen the hitters more, I've gotten better about doing that.

It's funny, because it was my first time ever in that pool, too.