Tony Russa Game Quotations

If we get beat (Friday) and Houston gets beat, we play again Saturday and after the game we celebrate.

I would have rather lost the game than to see that happen.

He just had no feel. Everything he tried to do, he was missing his target. It was one of those days that he just didn't have a feel for the game of pitching.

My whole concentration on the game is affected by a pitch that got away. You know, that looks so terrible. The guy is a great pro. I just talked to Julian in there for a long time. Nothing against him, as soon as he fell out of his delivery...the ball has to get down. He's a sinker ball pitcher. That incident screws up the whole night for me.

You can do anything you want with him. You can hit-and-run with him, bunt. We push the game with him quite a bit.

That's a very good lineup. He pitched deep into the game and pitched well, too.

We had excellent chances to add and we missed. That makes the game have a bad smell when you miss a point once or twice.

When you're talking about the best first five years in major league history, how's that not huge? Whether it's 100 RBIs, the .300 batting average or 30 homers, it's huge ... it's historic. We're not going to be cool about that one. We just saw history. I don't think you see history in this game that often. When you see it, you applaud it.

We're going to go game-to-game, series-to-series. We'll see if we think our pitching is vulnerable.

We would have taken the zero even if Houston loses.  The object is just to get (our magic number) to zero, ... If you have your preference though it's to win a game to get there.

That shows you what Juan is capable of doing. We don't win that game without him being a hero, a star.

He's searching. He wants to hit. He believes he can hit. It bothers him when he doesn't hit. But he can separate the game in a classic way, and that says a lot about him.

(Clemens) is tough enough to hit when it's over the plate and if he starts getting a big plate, that's going to be tough for us. I know in our ballpark, both Tim (McClelland) and Greg (Gibson), and I think Wally will, too, will call a good game and not get excited about the home crowd. You always worry when a guy has good command that he can get somebody excited.

The bunting side of the game has not been the easiest thing for Chris and he's worked really hard,

The bunting side of the game hasn't been the easiest thing for Chris and he's worked really hard,

You've got to make a commitment to playing the game that way, ... That doesn't just happen. That's the way our guys play the game.

For a guy who is supposed to be very tough, he's got a lot of cupcake in him. I saw him in an afternoon game in Cincinnati and he had his full beard on, but his wife didn't like it so he shaved it. He's macho with an asterisk.

There's a lot of pieces that remind you of the old Busch, especially in a 3 o'clock game when it's about 5 and you can't hardly see. It think it's a beautiful ballpark.

I don't necessarily think you can separate the two, ... When you come into a game with a big lead, absolutely the worst thing you can do is to walk guys. That's the only time I'd yell from the dugout - whey they walked somebody. So when you get behind a hitter in that situation, it's more likely a ball catches too much plate.

I don't necessarily think you can separate the two. When you come into a game with a big lead, absolutely the worst thing you can do is to walk guys. That's the only time I'd yell from the dugout - whey they walked somebody. So when you get behind a hitter in that situation, it's more likely a ball catches too much plate.

He pitched outstanding, and as long as this game is played, when a pitcher out there is pitching that way, you're not going to do much.

He pitched the game he was capable of, but we actually had three, four, five chances with some of our best RBI guys, and he made pitches, ... So take your hat off to him. He pitched very well. We had our chances.