Ron Gardenhire Bit Quotations

We know he's the one guy who's a little bit behind where he would normally be. No excuses. He had good stuff tonight, but he's not exactly perfect right now with his location and as good as we've seen him.

He's a little bit behind some of the other people, but the quality of his pitches are there. Now, it's about mechanics and not rushing.

He's having a little bit of a rough time swinging right now, and we'll see if he can put some good swings on the ball tomorrow and go from there.

He's got the contract thing, the whole package. When you're in your contract year, you start thinking about it. Guys that can play a little bit usually get after it pretty good. We figured he'd be on a pretty good mission.

He jammed his knee a bit on the play. He called me over today and said he was a bit sore in his leg, so we'll give him a couple of days off with the off-day tomorrow.

It choked me up a bit to see that. That was a nice thing by Big Buch. He was around Puck enough to really know him.

I think he's just missing the ball a little bit right now. He's close to whacking it a little bit. I don't worry about him, he's a veteran and he knows how to hit. He'll get his hits.

Willie Eyre is champing at the bit to get in the big leagues (and) probably deserves a look.

To me, starting the season with people less than 100 percent is very, very scary. I'm not talking about a little bit of a sore shoulder or something you play through, but I'm talking about muscle pulls and those types of things. Those come back and all of a sudden you're out.

We're struggling a bit right now, trying to find our way and trying to get healthy at the same time early in the year. We've got a lot of baseball left, so hopefully we'll right the ship in the next few series and play a little better baseball, pitching and defense.

It was an emotional moment. That kind of choked me up a bit when I saw that.

The story has always been with him that he's a sloppy practice guy, but a good game guy. He's gotten better at his practice now, and a lot of people talked to him about that, working on some drills. He's grown up a little bit and made his presence known this year in camp.

Sometimes you take a little bit of a step back to get where you need to be.

No matter how good he did, he wasn't very happy at the end of last year. It wasn't about the awards or anything else. It was about us not winning - and not getting back to the playoffs. That tells you a little bit about his makeup.

That's where Lew has been working hard. There were a couple of times in spring where he just flung it again. We're trying to get him to be a bit calmer out there. He's a good outfielder. He just has to calm down.

A lot of things got straightened out. It was a good conversation, ... Both parties learned a little bit about what each other is thinking and what's going on. It helped me. I'm sure it helped J.C. I learned a lot from him.

It was a very nice series for us, after coming off a tough road trip. We came back home and did what you have to do to get righted. Guys are now getting into a bit of a groove and playing good ball.

Everybody's taking a part in this thing and getting some swings, and I think everybody's feeling a little bit better about themselves.

That's a little bit scary. That is our speed guy off the bench.

I'm not going to punish a guy just because he's going to the world games. It's quite an honor. But it does make it a little bit more difficult. I'm not going to evaluate him while he's in the world games. I'll be evaluating my guys here.

I'm not jittery. It's not the greatest thing in the world to start out like this. I'm not jittery about it. I think these guys can play a little bit and we'll be all right.

If he sits back and tries to learn something from what happened last year, then he can definitely get going and have a little bit more of a solid year. Just being a little more consistent that would be better for everybody. But that's just a part of growing up.