Relief Pitching Quotes

The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.

Pitching keeps you in the games. Home runs win the game.

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.

I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel's suitcase.

The difference between relief pitching when I did it today is simple, there is too much of it. It's one of those cases where more is not necessarily better.

When I come into a game in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, no one out and a one-run lead ... it takes people off my mind.

My first year in the big leagues, I made $17,000. It was easy to go out and get another $17,000 relief pitcher. I never worried about innings or pitches. I just pitched.

A lot of long relievers are ashamed to tell their parents what they do. The only nice thing about it is that you get to wear a uniform like everbody else.

It helps to be stupid if you're a relief pitcher. Relievers had to get into a zone of their own. I just hope I'm stupid enough.

Coming into a game in the eighth or ninth inning is like parachuting behind enemy lines. And sometimes the chute doesn't open. You have to live with that. It's an occupational hazard.

There's been times where I've come out of the bullpen thinking I was going to throw a no hitter, and I've lasted two or three innings. So I try not to use my pre-game warm ups as a barometer of how I'm going to pitch.

You can't have an ego in the bullpen. At the end of the day, we're a group. We're only as good as the sum of our parts. Whatever you're called on to do that day, you've got to be willing to do it for the boys.

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 had set the standard for my style of relief pitching so high that when I came back to the rest of the pack, everybody said I was done.

With one out in the first, Dave Roberts looks a lot better than the last time he pitched against the Padres!

If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs.

You can't have your bullpen throwing three or four innings every night. Just not fair to them.

We need three kinds of pitching: left handed, right handed, and relief.

You can always improve your bench and relief pitching.

My career spanned the era when relievers started to become more important.

In my opinion, the best setup guys now have a tougher job than the closers. They pitch more innings, inherit more runners.

I'm a Red Sox fan, but I still have a lot of respect for Mariano Rivera, who's the best closer of all-time.

We have to have great pitching performances from our guys, and we have to take it from there.

The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.

They can't have Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling lose a game.