Tony Russa Against Quotations

When you go against a guy like Greg Maddux or a Roger Clemens, I don't care if it's a regular season game, is a guy with that kind of command and if he starts getting an edge he pushes and pushes it so it's up to whoever the umpire is,

Whoever is feeding him, I'm going to talk to Wendy (Sanders' wife) and make sure it's the same breakfast and lunch that he's been having. Because what a lift he's given us, four games straight games now. He's been so clutch against good pitching, really good pitching.

He's been so clutch against good pitching, really good pitching.

I think if you look at virtually every starter, we've had some rough starts here in the last two weeks, ... The big key is to get back on it mentally and understand that if we don't pitch, we don't win. Against the pitching we're going to face in postseason, we're not going to outscore people.

That's just the story of the postseason, ... Whether it was Atlanta against Houston or us against San Diego, or you take what the White Sox have done to (Vladimir) Guerrero and Garret Anderson, if you pitch really well, it's tough.

My whole concentration on the game is affected by a pitch that got away. You know, that looks so terrible. The guy is a great pro. I just talked to Julian in there for a long time. Nothing against him, as soon as he fell out of his delivery...the ball has to get down. He's a sinker ball pitcher. That incident screws up the whole night for me.

This is how he pitched earlier in the year. He just got into a funk. It happens to pitchers, it happens to hitters, it happens to defenders. And in the middle of that funk, he had a couple of games like this. Against Washington and today, this was the way he was earlier in the year. This is just his second year in the rotation; he's still learning.

We're just going to compete against him. There really is no secret. If we had a plan, we wouldn't talk about it. But there is no plan with him.

The Cubs have played us so tough all year, ... We had (Greg) Maddux going against us so we knew it would be a hellacious ballgame and it was.

I think it just proves he's human. I mean, he's really, really good, but if you compete against anybody, you have a chance to break through.

In the eighth inning, we missed our location three times, twice when we were ahead in the count. We almost caught a break -- Cabrera's ball was tagged, but it fooled Walker. That would have been an important break to catch. Matt got the ball up with a 1-2 count, and the pitch that Delgado tripled on wasn't where Ray was trying to throw it. Against good clubs in key situations, either you do or you don't, and if you don't, you get penalized most of the time.

There's a way to win when the other guy is pitching good against you. You've got to pitch and defend well against them. We didn't defend that well today, either.

He pitched nine innings against a tough offensive club -- that's dominating. He had a 2-0 pitch to a terrific hitter and he hit the ball out of the state. But that's the last run they got. That's outstanding pitching. No disrespect to anybody in either league who's doing great, but there's nobody greater than Chris. He's clutch.

You can't lose them the way we lost them. When you score one or two against a pitching staff that's last in the league. It's a mystery.

When he makes pitches, he can pitch against anybody. When he doesn't, he's vulnerable.