Phil Garner Gets Quotations

Until Taylor gets his stripes, he'll have to be moved around.

I feel that we have not seen his best game, although I can see why people are very high on him. He has a great downhill tilt, he looks like when he gets his game together, he can control both sides of the plate. He's down in the zone. I would hope he would go down there and pitch right from the get-go and put a little heat on us up here.

He's certainly a plus defensive player, and if he ends up showing he can swing the bat ... and he gets his foot in the door, it might be one of those situations where you can't get him out.

Was that his ninth win? That's pretty good. You've got a guy who didn't figure in your rotation at the start of the year and when he gets in he's won more than he's lost, so that's pretty good. He pitched a nice crisp game tonight. He threw strikes, he gets ahead. That gives a team a lift.

We had a chance to break through in the first couple of innings, then he settled down. You've got to get to him early, before he gets in a groove. That's what happened to us. He got in a groove.

Both will get on track. Even though Brad has given up the lead and blown a couple of saves, I think he's throwing the ball pretty well. When he gets his location where he wants it to be, he's going to be fine.

You've got to try to jump on a pitch early, get something that gets a little bit of the plate. If they make a mistake, you've got to be going after it.

You've got to tip your hat to David Eckstein. He plays the game as hard as you can play it. On the other side, you don't like him because he really gets in your hair, but you appreciate what he does.

I want him to be in the 15-win range, maybe six or seven games over .500. My only criticism, if I have one, is that he gets behind hitters during the regular season. He doesn't do that in the playoffs because he is aggressive and gets ahead of the hitters.

I'm necessarily swayed by the outcome more than by what he does with his pitches. If he's showing pretty decent location with his ball and he's able to throw his pitches over the plate and use something other than his fastball when he gets behind, that will be good. He was sharp today, he went right after hitters.

How do you explain that game? That was like a softball game where everyone on the block gets to play.