Johan Santana Quotes

I've got to keep my pitch count down. If you want to go deep into ballgames, you have to stay under that 100 mark.

You feel like a stud out there when people swing and miss. As I've gotten older, I've preached to our young guys that strikeouts are sexy, but outs are outs, man, no matter how you get them. It's a lot cooler for me pitching in the seventh or eighth inning than it is going 5 1/3. Your manager likes it a lot more, too.

During my time, there might have been one pitcher or two that were top pitchers on a team. Teams that won maybe had three, but today they have a lot of depth. They have a lot of long relievers, short relievers, and the strategy is different.

I'm pretty much the one that goes to the mound.

Strikeouts are important. Anytime you can generate an out without the ball being put in play, there's nothing that can be done in those situations.

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.

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

I'm not trying to throw six or seven pitches just to be able to strike you out. I'm trying to do it in three or four. It's the homework and the process between starts that I really focus on to help me do that.

The only time I really try for a strikeout is when I'm in a jam. If the bases are loaded with none out, for example, then I'll go for a strikeout. But most of the time I try to throw to spots. I try to get them to pop up or ground out. On a strikeout I might have to throw five or six pitches, sometimes more if there are foul-offs. That tires me. So I just try to get outs. That's what counts - outs. You win with outs, not strikeouts.

If you are used to going five innings and then go six or seven, you won't have your good stuff. They need to start that from the minor leagues and give pitchers strong arms.

If you can get an out on one pitch, take it. Let the strikeouts come on the outstanding pitches. Winning is the big thing. If you throw a lot of pitches, before you know it, your arm is gone.

I was never a strikeout pitcher. Why should I throw eight or nine balls to get a man out when I got away with three or four?

Too many pitchers, that's all, there are just too many pitchers Ten or twelve on a team. Don't see how any of them get enough work. Four starting pitchers and one relief man ought to be enough. Pitch 'em every three days and you'd find they'd get control and good, strong arms.

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.

I expect to pitch well and pitch efficiently.

Strikeouts are something that just happen. You don't go for strikeouts, because your pitch count gets too high. When you do get that opportunity, you have to put them away with whatever is working that day.

If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.

Yeah, strikeouts just kind of happen. It's not something I'm trying to do, I'm just trying to get outs as fast as possible.

You can't get too caught up in trying to pitch a complete game, because that's hard to do.

Power is a big thing in baseball. It can't be cheapened. That is, a fellow has it or hasn't. It isn't a fluke or great accomplishment, like a perfect game. When Mantle connects, it's a tape-measure job. Nobody who ever lived has more power than Mantle.

It's just, it's fun to stay in the game.

You'll have games where you're out there a long time. Being able to go through that and not get stiff was a good thing for me, ... As I went along, it felt better, and on that last play [a nifty move to his right and a throw across his body for the final out in the seventh] had a lot of body torque to it, and no problems.

If you can't afford the good food or if you can't afford health care or if you don't have a job or if your car is dangerous because you can't get it fixed and you DIE, you just lost the game-bzzzzz-thanks for playing extreme capitalism.

Success isn't owned - it's leased. And rent is due every day. Every single day, someone's coming for your job. Someone's coming for your greatness. If you're the greatest, someone wants to be the greatest, and so if you're not constantly improving your game, somebody else is.

If we don't create private sector jobs and just - just creating public sector jobs, we're going nowhere. This is a bad game. You've got to have innovation. You've got to have tax policies that support innovation.