Rich Dubee Quotations

He was collapsing his backside a little. It's something he has had to deal with before, and he threw some fastballs that had a good angle, so I'm not too concerned.

He made some big pitches when he had to. He gave us almost seven good innings despite the walks. It's the kind of game that should help his confidence.

His stuff was crisper and he threw the ball well. He's progressing nicely.

I think you've got to have some success -- catch a break, get on a roll or something, before you can get the confidence you'll need to make it over the long haul. Once you have success, you have something to build on.

You just hope he puts his mind to it more often. He's still learning that you have to come with a little extra fire in his belly against Major League hitters, and you have to trust what you're doing.

We'd like to see him more aggressive attacking the strike zone and being committed to what he's doing. He had a lot of deep counts and a lot of misses off the plate. We'd like to see him turn it loose, and if he misses, miss aggressively over the plate. It's his approach and attitude. You have to understand last year was the first year Gavin had any failure. He has to get his mind straight and be aggressive.

We're hoping to see a little more consistency. Hopefully, the breaking ball will continue to get better. But his command and consistency are something we'd like to see improve.

You hate to say it, but there's a bit of a breaking in period, during when a guy gets needs a break, to pitch a good game and get good results, and the confidence grows. That's what we're trying to get now, a positive roll. He won a spot in Spring Training, and now he's battling to continue to pitch here. He's facing an 'A' lineup every night, but, as a pitcher, you have to be able to separate that and understand that it's about making pitches.

You hate to say don't worry about the winning or losing, but if kids are pitching at the major league level at an early stage, maybe before they should be, it's important that they learn. They are going to have some down times. ... The player has to be pretty tough minded and a mentally strong person to be able to conquer a lot of that.

As far as presence, both of them had a good presence out there and both look comfortable out there. I was impressed with both of them going out there for the first time in a new organization.

Hopefully, it'll be another pitch that's a lot more usable for him. It can be a serviceable pitch, something that might be able to get him a few easy outs over the course of a game.

Gavin sometimes thinks too much about mechanics. He's naturally talented and sometimes thinks about where all the pieces are instead of being aggressive.

He's in a battle with everybody and the inventory we have. Geoff made some big strides. He pitched down a lot better and came up with a sinking fastball and a slider to go along with that. The improvement of being under control and confident is the biggest thing.