Ron Gardenhire Start Quotations

Sending him back out there, that's a little silly to try to do something stupid with a man's career. We haven't done that to him all year, and we weren't going to start today.

Kenny Rogers is not the guy he likes to face very often, so we sat him out. But he was ready to play. We've lost a lot of people, and Jacque is one guy who needs to step up.... Hopefully that's a good start for him to get on a roll.

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

He was a little out of whack before, but he's not out of whack anymore. This guy is making a case for himself. You get down toward the playoffs, you start looking at who can do it and who can't. It looks like he can do some things.

He's got the contract thing, the whole package. When you're in your contract year, you start thinking about it. Guys that can play a little bit usually get after it pretty good. We figured he'd be on a pretty good mission.

He's getting an MRI. If that comes out OK, he can start hitting again next week.

He's getting better pitches to hit. That's what happens when you start swinging well. The pitcher makes mistakes and you hit it instead of fouling it off.

He'd start wearing down. He'd tighten up a bit. You could tell.

We definitely need those guys to hit, that's the middle of the lineup. We need our middle guys to start banging the runs around.

When your infielder can't go out and play, you get a little nervous. You start to look around and inventing things on how you could get through it if certain things happen.

We're doing fine. I'm not going to start messing around with guys' brains. In time, he'll hit cleanup. We've said that before.

We're getting down to a few numbers where we can work it a little easier and not try to get everyone in. We want to start stretching out our players and take a good look at some of these guys that are battling each other and battling for positions on this team.

We feel pretty good when you start writing out a roster. Even with the injuries, it's not bad.

The good news is that we'll get his innings stretched out and he'll be somewhat ready to start the season. Whether it's here right away or down the road, he'll be on that schedule.

I'm sure hoping it's not going to be like that all year. That would be a tough thing to have to deal with. That's why you take precautions now in Spring Training, so once you start season everyone is healthy.

I'm not sitting around thinking about it as much as I used to. I used to booby trap everything. You start worrying about that stuff coming back at you. I'm a little calmer because there are different people here.

I'm not jittery. It's not the greatest thing in the world to start out like this. I'm not jittery about it. I think these guys can play a little bit and we'll be all right.

I'm going to start him, too. I'm going to try to get him at-bats. You can't be a good hitter off the bench unless you get at-bats and get a good feel for it. You can't just sit there and get one at-bat a week or every three days.

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.

Their pitcher was aware. Wood did a great job there. Most pitchers would catch the ball and start arguing with the umpire. He was very aware. He turned around looked home. He did a great job on that play.

But if guys aren't even close, you've got to start looking at maybe making changes. You definitely like to give them at least a month into the season and see where we're at.

He told me they didn't play him at all in a position in Spring Training, and then they get to the season and half way through they start him in the outfield. We just need to get him out there so he can see balls off bats and try to get him acclimated.

It wasn't pretty, but the bottom line is you've got to start winning games. It doesn't matter how you do it.

If everything comes back OK, then he will start hitting later in the week. Right now we're not quite sure where he's at.

All of the guys are excited to see one another and to realize that the start of Spring Training is right around the corner.