Can I Get A Quote, Please?

“(I should) probably try hitting the ball,” he said, with wry humour
Wednesday as he arrived at training camp. “That’d be a good start. Do
it consistently. That’d be another good way to go.”

“It is what it is,” he said. “You learn from it. It’s better to
learn from struggles. You’re really not going to learn much from
succeeding all the time. You go through your struggles and the way you
react to them, the way you come back from them, will define who you are.

“Everybody plays through different things,” he said.

“I’d rather be on the field and try to do what I can as much as possible no matter what injury you have.

“Obviously, it’s frustrating from an outsider’s point of view and it’s
frustrating from my standpoint because I want to be better than I was.
You just use it as fuel to get better.”

“This off-season was just about hitting, getting the strength back in my wrist and forearm and I’m good to go,” he said.

“I gave my old body a chance to recover. I did some working out but now
it’s all about gearing up for April. The last couple of off-seasons it
seems like I’ve been gearing up for February and then wearing down.”

“I think he’s been amazing,” Wells said. “To come in and make the kinds
of changes he’s made in his first year as a GM is impressive. He’s got
a direction that I think everybody’s on board with and everybody is
looking forward to. It’s an exciting time, even if there might be a
step backwards at certain points.”

“I want to be there,” he said. “I want to get back to doing what I’m
accustomed to doing and that’s helping this team win and driving in
runs.”

“Obviously, Cito knows if I’m where I need to be I’m going to help this team win games.”

“I’ve got him on that one,” Wells said about Hill. “It’s weird. It’s one of the first times that I’ve felt like this is my team.

“Over the years, you lose a Carlos (Delgado), you lose a Roy. I’ve been
able to spend some time with a lot of these young guys in the mini-camp
and just pick their brains and get a feel for where they’re at.”

“I was ready (to lead) then,” Wells said “It’s that feeling that ‘This is my team’ wasn’t there. I felt
it was partly my team, with (pitcher) Roy Halladay the other part.”

“Things change in a hurry,” Wells said. “I remember being here and
Carlos [Delgado] and those guys being here and I was a young guy trying
to make a ballclub and, now, it’s completely changed.

“It’s a fun role to be in,” he said. “Guys look at you to do the right
things and how to be successful at this level. It’s a role I’m looking forward
to. For me, it’s pretty easy. You expect guys to go out and play hard. That’s my
point to everybody. There’s one thing you can control in this game and that’s
going out and playing the game the right way and respecting the game. Things
will work out after that.”

“It’s
a learning process and it’s going to be fun going through it with these
guys.”

“Now it’s just a matter of gearing up for April. I think over the last
couple of offseasons I was gearing up for February and (later in the season)
kind of wearing down.”

“I think ‘retooling’ is a better word. We’ve got guys that are
close. We’ve got some young arms that got some experience last year and
it’s a period of getting to where we need to be. Whether that’s now or
next year, we’re building toward something. We’re building toward an
organization that can be strong for years instead of a year or two.”

“I don’t know. Apparently there’s mathematics that can go along
with catching a fly ball or something. I don’t know. I just say ask the
pitchers that are on the mound and ask the guys that are hitting in the
box and they’ll answer that question for you.”

“We’ve got guys that can play. I think it’s been lost obviously
with what the Yankees have been able to do, what the Red Sox have been
able to do, what the Rays have been able to do in our division. We’re
not going to put any limitations or expectations on what we’re going to
do. We’re going to go out and play hard and at the end of the day just
look at ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘You know what? We did what we
could to help this team win today,’ and move forward.”

“I think a lot of things kind of got blown out of proportion with
that. It’s a family. Youre around guys for almost 200 days including
Spring Training and you’re going to have issues regardless of who it
is. You deal with them in-house and unfortunately this got out, but I
don’t think it was any bigger than anything else that goes on in any
other clubhouses.”

“It’ll be different. It’ll be different playing in center field and
every fifth day not seeing No. 32 on the mound. But, to be honest with
you, those were boring days for me. I didn’t do much in the outfield.
I’d yell at him sometimes, but he wouldn’t hear me.”

“The real pain didn’t really come until about three weeks in the
offseason. Once the cortisone shots and the anti-inflammatories were
out of my system, it hurt to turn a wheel. So I said, ‘I should
probably get this looked at again. They went in and looked at it and
said, ‘Let’s get it cleaned out.’ I saw the before and after images and
it was pretty neat. I got to see the inside of my wrist and it looks
normal again.
“There was just fraying and it was inflamed. It was pretty ugly.
I don’t know. I learned some different things about the wrist and
tendons and everything else that goes along in there. I’m a little
smarter because of it and it’s taken the slice out of my golf swing, so
that’s good.”

“We’re going to need him to step up,” manager Cito Gaston said about Vernon. “It
can’t be all on him but if he can come back and even hit as well as he
did two years ago when he hit .300 and he did hit 20 home runs, that
will be something.”

“You’re going to have bad nights and you’re going to have to handle them
the right way. You’re going to have good nights and you’re going to have to
handle them the right way,” Gaston said. “Leadership is tough to do. Some
people are leaders, some are not.”

“We really don’t have a leadoff man,” Gaston said  “We might have to go to (Jose) Bautista … but he’s not a
guy you would just pencil in (as) a leadoff man.”

“He showed me he could handle it last year and I’ll tell him what I
always tell my leadoff men: You’re only the leadoff man in the first
inning,” Gaston said.

 

“Devon White didn’t want to be a leadoff hitter. I said, `Devon,
it’s just one time.’ After that it was all right. I never asked him to
act like a leadoff hitter, like to go up there and walk. (I said) go up
there and be aggressive and he did that and he was great.”Gaston
reiterated his belief that his lineup is loaded with potential 20
home-run sluggers, starting with Bautista and going through six, maybe
seven spots.

“Bautista has a chance to hit maybe 20-25 home
runs because he’s done it before,” Gaston said. “Then, of course,
you’ve got Hill, you’ve got Lind and Vernon who hit 20 home runs the
year before. Then you’ve got Overbay you hope can hit you 20 and
you have Encarnacion; he might hit 20.

“You’re
talking about the first six hitters. If Snider makes the club
he might do it, too. I think this club right now, the strength is the
hitters.”

“Wow. That ball was moving,” Gaston said about Jenkins. “It moves. It sinks. He threw
Vernon a high, running sinker that would just eat you alive. I’m just
glad Vernon got out of the way. I think he’s going to come pretty
quick.”

“He’s gotten himself into great shape,” Gaston said. “He told me
he’d lost 25 pounds. I asked him how he had done it and he made it very
simple when he said ‘I can afford it now.’

“It’s so true. People don’t realize that people who don’t have money
can’t go on diets because they have to eat what they can afford.
Instead of eating at McDonalds as a student, he can afford to eat
something that’s healthy for him.”

“Tallet has earned the chance (to start) by all that he did for us last year,” Gaston said.

“It’s very important (to have veterans) and the way he goes about his job,”

“I was really impressed with Encarnacion,” Gaston said. “He was
swinging really well for the first day. Put a couple out over the
left-field fence that a lot of guys couldn’t reach (Wednesday).”

“I think he deserves a chance,” Gaston said. “This kid
(Ruiz is 32) has hit everywhere he’s went. You put him in there day in
and day out, or DH him day in and day out, I believe he’d hit you over
20 home runs.”  I think he’d drive
you in close to 80-90 runs and hit .280 or so in the big leagues.”

“Randy is a guy that I believe, given the chance to play and get 300
at-bats, could hit you 20 home runs,” said manager Cito Gaston, who is
a big Ruiz fan. “He has hit everywhere he has gone but he’s been unfortunate to be on teams where he just never got a chance.”

“To worry about, ‘Hey, this could
be my last year here,’ I think that’s something you should put aside
and just go, ‘Hey, I’m going to have the best year ever and I’ll give
them the chance of bringing me back or not bringing me back.”‘ Gaston said about Overbay

“Marcum and McGowan should be able to bounce back (from injury) and
we know their histories. Ricky was solid last year. Tallet has earned
the chance by all that he did for us last year. And I think Morrow
needs to know his job and, from what I hear, I’m not sure he knew that
(in Seattle). That’s not my team out there so I don’t know what’s going
on.”“I think that would be a pretty good starting rotation,” Gaston said. “But a lot of things can happen.”

“That’d be a great, great surprise for us,” if McGowan proved healthy

“Ricky looks fine,” Gaston said. “If he doesn’t get hurt last year who knows what he might have done.”

“One thing you have to keep in mind,” Gaston said, “is that the No. 1
guy, he’s always facing the best pitchers in baseball. Not to say that
Ricky can’t do that, but he’s still young. I don’t know who it’s going
to be. It depends on who’s healthy.”

Gaston said he’d rather have an opening day starter who’s “been around
a little bit longer, someone that’s got a little but more experience.
But Ricky, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“It was a tough day to hit off pitchers,” manager Cito Gaston said.

“There was a lot of looking going on.”

“I think they’re capable of doing it. Expected to do it? No, I wouldn’t
put that on them. I think they’re going to get pitched differently.
They’re certainly going to get a lot of respect.” Gaston, asked if Hill
and Lind are expected to repeat last year’s performances

“Hill is a great kid. He said, ‘I’ll hit anywhere, even sixth if you want.”

“He wants to come back now. I said, ‘Jesse, we want you out
there healthy.’ You watch him throw, it doesn’t look like there’s
anyting going on there [with his arm], but you still can come back too quick.” –Gaston, on Jesse Litsch

“I can’t wait to get started, to see these kids pitch and see who can pitch their way on this club.”

“Downs is a good guy,” Gaston said. “He isn’t going to
mind being a closer or a setup guy. It’s not going to bug him if he
doesn’t do one or the other.”

“He turned a corner for me last year,” Gaston said about Frasor. “I
approached him a couple of times on the mound and he showed me that he
wanted that ball out there. He didn’t mind being out there and closing
a game out. I like what I see. I thought he did a great job for us.
He’s certainly in the mix.”

“Everybody’s
got to be out there competing,” Anthopoulos said. “In
Brandon’s case, we certainly would expect him to make the team, but he
knows he’s got to earn his way on as well.”
“This is probably the first offseason and Spring Training where it’s
been a clear, defined role for him being a starter,” Anthopoulos said
“In talking to him a little bit, it seemed like that’s something that
he’s hoped for, knowing what his role is going to be. Irrespective of
what happens, irrespective of performance, we’re committed to him as a
starter.

“Could that change down the road? Sure. But right now, we’re
100 percent fully committed to leaving him as a starter, and we have
had no discussions and no plans at all to even entertain anything
else.”

“I understand there’s a lot of
talk in the off-season and he’s in the last year of his deal and it’s
clear we’re going with a younger-type team,” Anthopoulos said about Overbay. “He
understands the direction we’re going, but he also realizes that he
wants to help the team win and wants to have as good a year as he can.
We’ll see how things go.” 

“I think with him, it’s just too early to tell. We’re
so early in the process. I mean, if we get to that point that we start
talking about an innings cap, I think that’s great news for us. That’d
be a great problem to have.” –Anthopoulos, asked if McGowan might face
an innings limit this season

“We still think that Travis Snider is a big part of our future,” Anthopoulos said “But he is not
guaranteed a spot on our team heading into the season. He has to come
into camp and earn it.”

“Without getting specific on players,” Anthopoulos said, “we’re trying
to be as aggressive as we can and explore every player. At least doing
our homework and making sure we’re scouting these players, evaluating
them, getting to know them a little bit; finding what the price points
are and if they line up with the value we put on them.”

“Obviously finding what the price-points are and if they line up with
how we’re evaluating the players.  It’s tough in Latin America
with some of the things that go on down there.
“But we’re trying to maybe be a little more aggressive and scout a little bit harder than we did in the past.”

“That being said, are we going to see every international player?
Probably not. But, that’s something that I just sat down with Marco
[Paddy, director of Latin American operations] last week and we’re
trying to devise a plan of, ‘How can we do our best to see as many of
these players as we can?

“There’s no cap if it’s the right baseball opportunity. We need to get
approvals for the things we do but there are no limits or ceiling that
we have to work with. We just have to feel it’s the right move for us.”

“Yes, 100 per cent,” Anthopoulos confirmed.

“I’d really
say there’s no cap as long as it’s the right baseball opportunity. Even
when we were talking about Chapman, (Jays president) Paul (Beeston)
made it very clear in talking to ownership that if we felt it was the
right baseball opportunity … and it was the right move for us, then
they would endorse and certainly support it.

“Ownership is committed to spending when we feel it’s the right time
to spend and it’s the right opportunity,” Anthopoulos said. “We’re not
going to go into the draft shying away from certain players because
they’re too expensive. If we feel the value is there, we’ll have the
money to go sign those players.

“It’s a big opportunity to infuse a lot of talent into the minor leagues.

“We’re certainly working hard. If there was any a time to add staff,
this was as good a year as any. This is a big chance for us.”

“You’ve got to take the best player,” Anthopoulos stated. “We’re
trying to get players that we would have a hard time getting in free
agency and (whom) we would have a hard time getting in trades. As a
result we’re going for a higher ceiling. There’s going to be more risk.

“Certainly, you’re going to make mistakes; you’re not going to hit
on all of them. If in 10 years, you hit on two high ceiling, high
impact guys, I’d rather have those two guys than five solid, average
big-league players because we always feel those are the players we can
get in trades and we can get in free agency.”

“In baseball, it’s not like the NFL or the NBA,” Anthopoulos said.
“It’s very rare that you draft a player and he’s with your team the
following year. Knowing how quickly things change — guys getting hurt,
performance dropping off, trades occurring — you can’t start picking on
positional need. You’ve got to take the best player. Things work
themselves out.”

“There are a lot of guys here,” Walton said. “A lot of guys. It’s a big test for me.”

“Obviously, I can’t control how many pitches it takes for them to get
three outs,” Walton explained. “I can’t control how many times they get
up in the bullpen and stuff like that. But on our throwing days, our
side days, our long-toss days, we’re just going to manage them with
common sense and try to save bullets in those areas where, hopefully,
you keep them fresher day-to-day and game-to-game.”

“They love to play catch. They’re pitchers. That’s what they do,”
Walton said. “When they start playing catch, it’s fun for them, but I
think sometimes we go overboard a little bit. I think we do waste some
bullets, and I just want to control it the best I can.”

“Is that saving bullets?” Walton said. “No, but it’s using your bullets
at the right time before you come to the mound to get your work in.”

“I don’t think it’s in response to anything other than the inexperience and the younger kids that I will have,” Walton said.

“Hopefully I get them to understand that making the team, not making
the team, it’s not that big of a deal,” Walton said. “Everybody is
going to have an opportunity, I think, to come up over the course of
the year. Hopefully by my patience and the way I talk and the way I
teach, it slows guys down a little bit.”

“I don’t know where I’m going exactly,” he said with a laugh. “But I know that I’ve started at the right spot.”

“We’ve really enjoyed our time (with Toronto),” said McDonald, referring to his wife and daughter.

“It was an easy thing to come back to.  “I want to be a professional baseball player
and what a great opportunity to continue my career, to be on this team,
a young rebuilding team, pass along knowledge and also get an
opportunity to play.”

“We knew the later it gets, the offers are going to go down, the
financial terms are going to go down,” he said. “You see a lot of
players are still not signed. The Blue Jays were aggressive, and that’s
great.”

“I would hope the younger players would use a player like me as a
source of knowledge,” said McDonald, who arrived in camp yesterday,
five days ahead of schedule. “I wouldn’t necessarily want to teach
young kids to be just like me but over the last 10 years I’ve taken in
a lot of knowledge that I’d like to give back to young players.”

“So you kind of want to be, not necessarily a coach on the field, but I
would encourage and will encourage all our younger infielders to ask as
many questions as they can.

“I would want them to take my job. To be able to make them better
players, to come and take my job, I think it helps the organization.”

“Over the last few years, there has been hope when we come to spring
training,” McDonald said. “We always knew, with Roy as our ace we could
go into New York or Boston and win any series if we’ve got Doc on the
mound. Now it’s different. We’ve got a much younger staff. It’s more
about building for this year and for the future.

“As players we have to separate out own views and our work away from
what the fans are thinking. You want to win every game you can for
them, for the city and for ourselves. But to understand that we have a
lot of young players, a lot of good quality players who are going to be
very good in time. Maybe they’re not going to be great on opening day,
but we can be very good over time.”

“The better we play defensively the more it’s going to help our young
pitchers, the more confidence we’re going to give to them to execute
pitches; to not be afraid to throw pitches that are going to get put in
play. It’s okay to throw that pitch for a strike that gets put in play
and let your defence make that play.”

“I’ve been told by some of the veterans to just know your place,”
Jenkins said. “That’s what I’ve tried to do. I keep my mouth shut and I
stay to myself.”

“I felt bad for Lind,” Jenkins said with a laugh. “I didn’t feel like I
gave him anything to hit. I was a little nervous. It’s my first hitter
and, of course, my first hitter was Lind. And I was like, ‘Uh oh. I’m
going to be all over.’ I couldn’t find the zone. I think he gave me a
pity swing on a changeup. After that, I settled down just fine.”

“As most college students know, the budget’s not quite there,” Jenkins
said. “It’s just the type of food I have available to eat now. I don’t
have to live off dollar menus. Especially being on the road while
you’re in school, meal money might cover McDonald’s on a good day. You
just didn’t have time to eat good food.

“You start taking care of yourself and your body starts taking care of you.”

“To
hear stuff like that is a huge compliment,” he said. “That’s awesome.
I’m glad I threw up some good stuff on the first day.”

“We saw a physical kid, although maybe not in the best condition,” said
LaCava, referring to scouting Jenkins as a college pitcher. “What he’s
done to himself this winter is really impressive. He got after it and
he did it the right way. He really transformed his body.”

“We’ll let him tell us where he should begin with his performance this spring,” LaCava said

Has lowered his hands in his stance. “Simplifies the load,” Snider explained.

“My dad keeps things in perspective,” Snider said. “Together we have
gone through a lot in baseball and in life as well. Our relationship
has only gotten stronger throughout this. He does a great job of
putting things in perspective and realizing how far I’ve come and we’ve
come as a family.”

“I’m still young, and you try and learn as much as you can at a young
age to prepare yourself for some of these things that I, honestly,
wasn’t prepared for,” he said. “I think going into it now you
understand how blessed and how thankful we really need to be as
athletes [at] having this opportunity and not taking that for granted.

“I wouldn’t say I took it for granted, but sometimes you lose you’re
perspective on where you’re really at, and what kind of opportunity you
have.”

“I went through some mental struggles from a baseball standpoint that
I’d never had to deal with,” he said. “I’d never had to deal with that
kind of failure and being sent down. I didn’t know how to handle it.
Didn’t know how to turn on that switch every day. I think, (being sent
down) was the best thing that could have happened to me as a young man
trying to grow up, keep things in perspective. You watch guys that are
successful and their concentration level never changes.”

 

“I told Jay (Stenhouse, P.R. vice-president) I’m probably not going to
give the most emotionally controlled answer and the most appropriate
answer,” Snider recalled. “It’s an experience I learned from. Sometimes
I’ve just got to take a step back.”

“Adjustments at this level are key,” he said. “I stopped making those
adjustments at the end of April, beginning of May and, for a while at
triple-A, I was reluctant to listen to some of the people. They were
trying to help me and I backed myself into a corner. As a strong-minded
person, you think you know everything. This year, I’m excited to utilize
those people around me.”

“Lindy’s a great example because he’s experienced a lot of the things
that I’ve experienced as well as a little bit more,” Snider said.
“We’re able to feed off each other and develop a real good relationship
on and off the field.”

“It was the same I think I had last year,” he said. “I feel like we’ve
got some good competition in camp. We’ve got a great group of young
guys, that we’re all kind of in this together, on-the-bubble guys that
really have to come out here and prove ourselves in spring training and
early in the season.

“And I think it’s great.”

“There’s a lot of us on the
bubble and it’s healthy competition. Hopefully, we can build a good
nucleus here, something strong that we can develop as a group.”

“I’m here to win a job,” said Snider. “Coming off last year’s
performance, how could anybody guarantee me a job? I have to earn it.

“There’s no guarantees,” Morrow said. “I’ve got to, obviously, earn my
spot. But if I’m not in the rotation here, it will be at whatever level
they decide, I guess. But, personally, I expect myself to be in the
rotation in Toronto. Having that knowledge that you’re going to be a
starter helps. It’s just a totally different mind-set really, right out
of the gates.”

It’s really important mentally,” Morrow said. “The back and forth in
Seattle starts to wear on you a little bit, and it’s nice to know that
you’ve got a position and that’s what you’re working towards. You don’t
have to think about two different things at one time and try to prepare
yourself for two different roles at one time.”

“I think I would be in a different spot as a starter but you can’t say
enough about getting major-league experience,” he said. “I’ve got 160
innings at the major-league level. I’ve got over 100 appearances.
That’s a lot of time. Experience is valuable.

“I think it’ll help accelerate working as a starter, because
there’s that comfort level. It takes a while just to get comfortable
out there, and what I’m starting to learn now is that I don’t have to
be 100 percent every pitch.

“I’m starting to find that comfort level where I can cruise, and it helps with my control and stamina and everything.”

“I checked the Internet and there wasn’t anything on there,” Morrow
recalled about being traded. “So it was a little bit of a surprise. I knew something was
up, though.”

“It’s impressive,” Morrow said. “There’s a lot of arms here — a lot of
great arms with a lot of good stuff. It’s going to be a great Spring
Training. Guys are really going to be pushing each other, and I think
that’s going to help everybody out.”

“Talking to (GM) Alex it’s a chance to pitch late in ball
games in the AL East,” Gregg said. “It’s the chance to sort of help out
a bullpen that is looking for a couple of guys to fill in.”

“Whatever role we all end up in, you’re making that game pretty
deep,” Gregg said. “It’s going to help out the starters, and seeing
these guys are pretty young for what they’ve accomplished, it allows
them to shorten the game. We’re not going to have to push those guys to
try to get them into the seventh or eighth inning. When you’ve got
three guys that can just close the door at the back end it can really
help out the starters in their situation.

“It lets everybody grow.”

“You never want to lose your job,” Gregg said. “It was a good chance
for them to see Carlos Marmol and see if he could handle the ninth
inning, which he hadn’t done before. Obviously I was struggling at what
I was doing. They’ve got to look to their future at the same time.

“For
me, last year was a chance, where it was the first year after knee
surgery. It was feeling a lot better than it was before, but there were
some mechanical issues that I was trying to (balance). My leg was
stronger than the year before. I still pitched in over 70 games last
year – and I just think bouncing with that stuff I got myself back in
the right slot where I need to be and look forward to it.”

“When I was pitching with the Angels, I actually enjoyed going into
Yankee Stadium, enjoyed going into Boston,” Gregg said. “I keep
changing (teams) every couple of years so I don’t know any better. I’ll
put on a jersey wherever it may be. I’ve seemed to bounce through four
teams over the years, so it’s just another step in my career.”

“If you look back at the last few World Series teams, the depth of the
bullpen has played in huge,” Gregg said. “Those teams that make the
playoffs, they have a bullpen they can establish and go forward that
really helps them get through.”

“To be honest, yeah. Absolutely,” he said. “The way they’re going, it seems like they’re setting the table for the young guys.” 

“I’ve been there before. I’ve
been there with Prince Fielder,” Overbay said Thursday. “When (Wallace)
is ready, he’ll be here. They have to look to the future.”

“There’s always somebody behind you. It’s just the way this game is,” he said.

“They’ve got their plan,” Overbay said. “I think the biggest thing is
hopefully they’ll stick to it. When you start doing something, and they
start pushing the panic button and start doing something different,
that’s when it leaves the organization in turmoil.” 

“Alex told me that I’m here and they want me here. That’s all I want,” Overbay said. 

“I was wishing the season was about a month longer, the way I was
going,” Bautista said “Playing every day helped a lot and
being in the leadoff spot, I really was seeing a lot of pitches to hit.
I started feeling good at the right time. I worked out some things in
the cage with Murph (hitting coach Dwayne Murphy) and I think
that really helped. Obviously the consistent playing time helped too.”

“I’m definitely excited to be back but I’m not setting my mind on
anything,” he said. “I’m not counting on having a regular job. I’m just
going to go into camp as I usually do, knowing I have to prove myself.
That’s the mindset I’m going to have.
“Any time you can find a way to put yourself in the lineup, it’s
good. I feel very comfortable out there and I like playing the
outfield. In the leadoff spot, I saw a lot of good pitches to hit, so
hopefully if I’m in there again, I can take advantage of that.”

“I welcome the challenge and I hope that’s the spot I’m going to be
in,” Bautista said. “You just have to be a little more patient … and
you’ve got to get on base so (your teammates) can drive you in. By
taking a couple of pitches you can accomplish both those things and I
have no problem doing that.”

“Doc’s one of those guys that everybody looked up to,” Marcum said. “He
didn’t talk a whole lot, but you learned just by watching what he did.”

“Opening day start, whatever,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I just
want to pitch when it’s my turn to pitch, and the main thing for me is
staying healthy, whether it’s Opening Day or not. Whoever gets the
Opening Day start, take the ball out there and give us a chance to win
– whether it’s me, Ricky, Tallet, Brandon Morrow — whoever it is.
“Every one of us has a chance to go out there and help this team win, and that’s all I care about.”

“It feels like a brand-new elbow,” Marcum said. “I feel like I’m 10
years old again. It takes me three throws to get loose and, other that
that, I just go out there and throw, and my arm feels great.”

“He’s (Overbay) probably worried about getting hit, not the movement on the
ball,” said Marcum. “It’s good when we talk with them afterward. Johnny
Mac (McDonald) said he thought that ball was coming out of my hand
pretty good. It helps to hear from the hitters.”

“It’s a lot better than last year,” he said with a smile. “Last year
wasn’t a whole lot of fun. I’m kind of looking forward to getting out
there and doing whatever I can to help this team win games. It’s
important to me. Last year was tough to sit there and watch games and
not be able to help.

“It’s going to be a fun year for us this year, and I’m looking forward to it.”

“I think Toronto was at home to Boston and I was watching the game on
TV in the hospital,” he said. “My wife wasn’t too thrilled about that.
But I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing.”

“I thought I could have (come back) but that was probably just the
competitor in me trying to rush back and pitch,” he said. “When I look
back at it now, it was probably a smart move that I didn’t.”

“We have a lot of good arms here,” Marcum said. “I think our pitching
staff is going to be better than people might give us credit for. I
think we’re going to surprise a lot of people. It’s going to be a
battle all year long for us.”

“I think it’s a blessing in a way,” the 28-year-old McGowan said of the
Jays’ roster dilemma. “Guys don’t want any options. They want to get
rid of them. That way if something little happens they can’t get sent
down or stuff like that.”

“I think the knee (injury) was the biggest blessing there was,” McGowan
said. “At that point I just started throwing and (the shoulder) was
aching. I was throwing 45 feet, it was aching. The next day I had the
knee injury and it just gave me five or six weeks of no throwing to
rest. Once I had that rest it felt pretty good. I think that really
helped.”

“It kind of steps your game up a little bit,” McGowan admitted. “It
gives you a bit of motivation, if they want to count me out.”

“It’d definitely be a really, really awesome experience,” Romero
admitted. “Not very many guys get to do that — it only happens once a
year. It’d be exciting. It’d be really, really exciting, but I’m not
too worried about it.”

“It’s not something that I’ve thought about,” said Romero. “It would be
an awesome experience but it’s going to take 25 guys to pull us
through.”

“This year I came in mentally stronger, thinking, ‘You can do it. You can pitch at this level. You belong here.”‘

“Mentally, it makes a huge difference to have that confidence in your ability and to know that you belong,” he said.

“You get a little more adrenaline when you see a hitter in the box,”
Romero said. “I think that’s more of what it was, kind of getting used
to it again. I could tell from the first couple of pitches that I was a
little excited.

“Once I settled down, everything was just kind of fluid and it was
kind of muscle memory from there on. It’s coming back little by little
and, hopefully I’ll peak at the right time.”

“The biggest thing is to keep working,” he said. “You’ve got to stay
dedicated and have that desire to keep getting better. I look at those
three D’s: Discipline, dedication and desire.
“It comes down to who wants it more. I feel like I’m hungry out there and I want to get better.”

“Biggest thing I’m focused on is throwing strikes,” he said. “I have to
slow my whole body down mechanically. I tend to get excited and rush
and typically I come in every spring and get off to a slow start.”

“Last off-season I played in the (Arizona) Fall League and there was an
obvious problem – I couldn’t see at night too well,” Arencibia
explained. “I had a pretty bad astigmatism. We elected not to do the
(laser) surgery and to try to wear Oakleys (sports eyewear) and
contacts. My astigmatism was at the point where it didn’t help. I had
to wait to the end of the season to get my corrective procedure done.”

“I was losing function in my right kidney,” Arencibia said. “If it got
any worse, (doctors) wanted to operate. They knew if I made it through
the season without losing any more function in my kidney, as soon as
the season was over I was going to get the surgery done. It’s called a
UPJ obstruction. Your kidney drains into your bladder, it’s a blockage.
So they go in and cut out the blockage and they connect the tube back
to the kidney.”

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot and I’ve come a long way defensively
and offensively,” Arencibia said. “I’ve just got to keep plugging away
and learning from the big guys. It’s awesome to be around (John) Buck
and (Jose) Molina and (Raul) Chavez, guys that have been around. That’s
the biggest thing. Signing guys like that makes me happy. I get to
learn from those guys.”

 

“Me and Travis talked a lot,” Arencibia said. “It wasn’t even family.
Snider went through his struggles last year and I went through my
struggles and we have that friendship where we can kind of talk to each
other. Last year I was just trying to press instead of just going out
there and having fun and realizing that I could go out there and be me.”

“Last year, I learned a lot trying to put pressure on myself,”
Arencibia said. “All I can do is be myself. I feel like when I’m the
player I can be that I’m a guy that can play every day in the majors.”

“It’s the same thing I had last year,” Richmond said. “It never really
healed completely. There’s no pain or anything, but it’s still really
stiff.”

“He was good,” Lind said about Jenkins. “He can get people out in the big leagues.”

“Tell me when that bowling ball is coming in. Man, that was a nice pitch,” Hill said about Jenkins.

“Take a picture of Johnny Mac hitting grounders! The fans will love him even more!”

“That’s the skipper’s job. He’s got to see what we have coming out of
camp,” Hill said. “We’re just here to hit and when the lineup’s posted,
we’ll just go where we’re at.”

“I’m a rookie in the game and he (Alex Gonzalez) has been around a long time,” Ruiz
said Saturday. “It’s a respect issue. I’ve been in the minor leagues
all my life and I’ve had about a thousand numbers. I don’t think a
number is going to make any difference.”

“My dad loves it,” Ruiz said. “He loved the idea that I’m No. 21
because he was a big Roberto Clemente fan. So we’ll see if some of it
will rub off on me.”

“I’ll do whatever they need me to do,” said Ruiz.

“I’ll come off the bench, play first base, DH, left field, I don’t
care. I just want to be there and when they call me I have to be ready.”

“When you’re coming out of the game at 10 o’clock, and then you start
eating and you go straight to sleep, that’s what kills you,” he said.
“I’m trying to prolong my career. I feel like I’ve got another 10 years
in me.”

“I go out there not to put pressure on myself,” he said. “They make
the decisions. If it happens, it happens. If not I’ll go to the minor
leagues and do what I do best and force these guys to bring me up.

“I feel like I belong here. It’s taken a long time. I’m enjoying it
because I waited so long. Now I have an opportunity, I’m going to do
what I can not to let it go.”

“I put no pressure on myself,” Ruiz said Saturday. “I would love to be up
there with the club but right now I’m just going to have fun and try to do what
I can do.”

 

“Everywhere I’ve been I’ve done well but it was a matter of being in the
wrong place at the wrong time,” Ruiz said. “I was behind (Cincinnati’s) Ben
Broussard at one point when he was a big prospect. I was behind (Philadelphia’s)
Ryan Howard. When I was with the Yankees they had Jason Giambi.
“These guys are superstars making multimillion dollars,” he added. “All
you can do is sit and wait and not worry about what happens up there.”

“I was a free agent every year, and when I didn’t get promoted to the next
level I felt like I had to try somewhere else,” he said. “But I learned that
it’s always good to stay in one organization because they know who you are, they
know what kind of person you are, know what kind of player.”

“I like playing the field. I feel like I’m into the game that way,” Ruiz
said of his preference for first base. “But if it’s DH or (as a pinch-hitter)
off the bench, that’s just as good. Right now I’m just happy to have a uniform
on.”