Frank Robinson Last Quotations

I'd certainly prefer to finish fourth than finish fifth. There's a stigma to that: last. 'You finished last, last year.' And after the start we had, ... that just kind of throws cold water completely on the whole season right there.

He has been our offensive weapon the last month. Another big game from him. At least he is a threat up there at the plate now, which makes a big difference down in the bottom of the lineup.

He is doing the things that we've asked him to do last year and tried to get him to do and he is doing them now and you have to say, it's two games but it's two games in a row he did those things. If he continues to do that, that's what we want from him and that's what we have to have from him if he is going to make this ball club.

Those are the things that we talked to him about a little bit last year. We wanted to see that, but he didn't do those things. Now he is seeming to be doing that and having success.

We're not going to have the kind of club that's going to just outscore teams. We're going to need good pitching along with timely hits. That's what worked for 90 games last season.

What I think they've done the last three days is play the way they're capable of playing. Their attention is now on baseball itself and not a lot of outside stuff, and it's starting to show up on the field.

Actually, I wouldn't mind another week down here. Not to play games, but just to work on fundamentals. We didn't win many games, but, maybe just in the last week, we started looking a little better. Before that, we looked terrible.

Absolutely, I knew it was a good move. If we needed to make a move at shortstop, it wouldn't be a drop-off defensively. ... We didn't have that last year.

It was probably the best game he's pitched in the last five or six ball games. His knee is getting better each start, and he is getting back to where he normally would be: that is hitting the corners with his pitches and changing speeds.

It might not last until we get to San Diego. But it certainly should show these guys what they're capable of doing if each individual would go up there and do what he's capable of doing, and think about it being a team effort.

It's already out there now. It's just like it happened last year, one guy starts to complain about it, the next guy picks it up a few games later when they hit a ball pretty decent. Then it starts to spread. To say management doesn't care about winning, that's way off base.

I'm walking around a lot better than the last time it happened,

But if you finish over .500, you can say, 'We can go from here. If we win 'x' number of games more than we won last year, we can win this thing.'

He's a professional. He takes the ball. He's not always healthy when he goes out there, but he doesn't complain about it. He just gives you the best he can possibly give you. It was the same way last year, even though we were really trying to protect him with that knee, he still wanted to throw as many innings as he possibly could.

This is a key year for him, I think, for him to go back out there and back last year up with another solid year. There is no reason why he shouldn't be able to, barring some type of serious injury.

The frustration starts when we played like we played last night and then we come out and play like we did today. I don't know what it is. I just can't figure this team out.