Quotes About Strategy

There aren't many hitters who like facing knuckleball pitchers. They may not be intimidated by them, but they sure are thinking about them before they go into the box.

Left-handed pitchers get paid a lot of money to get left-handed guys out or else they wouldn't be in there. They feel confident going up against lefties. If you look at most lefties' numbers, typically they happen to be better against lefties than against righties. That's all it is.

I feel like, in general, lefties hit fastballs from right-handed pitchers better than right-handers hit fastballs from right-handed pitchers.

There are some great pitchers in this league. You're going to get fooled sometimes. They're going to get you.

I think there's a growing number of pitchers who want to have a plan going into a game about how they're going to go after that lineup. I'd say 75 percent want to have an idea, and they plan their attack. I know that 75 percent of hitters do not have that same type of plan against a pitcher.

Baseball's postseason shifts from game to game because of starting pitchers and the geography of the ballparks.

I know my Dad's a National League guy. I'm an American League guy. I tell him all the time we got better hitters. He's like well we got better pitchers. I'm like cause you all got those easy outs at the end.

I can maybe depend on my fastball a little more than some other pitchers.

Learn the league, learn the pitchers, learn how they're going to go after you.

You have to play defense for the pitchers.

A pitcher needs two pitches, one they're looking for and one to cross them up.

Pitches are like pages of a book; they're so important. The chess game; how I set you up early, and how I'll do it differently later.

You're just trying to go out there and give seven innings. Seven innings, 105 pitches, that's a good outing.

Any time you can go out there and throw 12 pitches in any inning, you give your team some momentum coming in and get some confidence out on the mound.

There's been a couple of guys who have gotten me. I used to say Adrian Gonzalez. He's a good lefty hitter; he's hit a few home runs off of me. They were a couple of mistakes, so if you make your pitches, you're more likely to have a better outcome.

I learned to bat and bowl on different pitches and knew when to go hard and when to back off. It was just something I learned.

My pitch count as a general rule was 135. And I knew how many pitches I had when I went to the mound for the last three innings.

You still have to pitch the same game, execute your pitches as best you can. If the shadows end up helping you out, then great, but you can't really worry about that stuff.

Once I get completely right mechanically and with command, maybe I only use two or three pitches to get through seven innings.

You figure when you match up against other clubs and you go through the lineup one through nine, you get to the nine hole, if you can put together an at-bat or you can see some different pitches that helps give you an advantage competitively, it can make your lineup stronger.

All I really try to do is whatever hitter gets in there, I just try to get him out in as few pitches as possible.

In India you pick teams based on pitches, so it's the bowlers who get changed. if it is a turning pitch a fast bowler can't play, and if it is a green pitch, a spinner can't play.

Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching.

Pitching is both an art and a science.