I don't expect us to play poorly, although I could feel entirely different a week from now. What we do know is that this team is a lot better; we've gotten better. Everyone has improved, and that makes us able to play a lot of different ways in February and March.

I'd like to congratulate the St. John's team for a terrific effort.

On paper, we seem to be a deep, big and experienced basketball team that should be ranked in the top 10 teams in America.

On paper, we seem to be a deep, big and experienced basketball team that should be ranked in the top 10 teams in America.

On paper, we seem to be a deep, big and experienced basketball team that should be ranked in the top 10 teams in America.

Obviously, the team was in very good spirits.

Obviously they're a tournament team. I thought they were a tournament team yesterday.

Maybe it was subtraction by addition. I'm not sure of anything because I'm so stunned by the way my team played.

The only place down the road I want to see them is in Indianapolis at the Final Four. They come loaded and knock you down. That is a great team with heart.

The ebb and flow of the game was how you'd like to see it.

The kid has the pitches to be very good. This was definitely a game for him to build on.

He's the consummate professional. He plays the game only one way and that's to win. I really think the fans in Pittsburgh are going to love this guy. He's their type of player.

I know he wants to retire from the game knowing he did it physically competing at the end, ... You have to admire that.

That's a tough game to lose, and obviously we're being tested early.

It was a great game. We did everything we could to win the game to avoid being swept.

It's going to be just another game to those guys because they've been given at-bats. That's why they've been given at-bats, so that in a situation like this, they're ready and not rusty.

It's a tough game to lose after the manner in which we came back.

It's a tough game to lose after the manner in which we came back. One of the first things to stave off on the road is a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth. More often than not, it comes back to haunt you, and it did.

As small an aspect of the game as bunting might appear to be to a lot of people, it's really important to me. The complexion of a game can change because you have the ability to advance a runner 90 feet. It's huge.

That's his game to determine at that point. You take him out of the game like that there, you bring in the bullpen and a mistake is made, a ball gets hit in the gap, and he's the pitcher of record in the losing decision, and he got to watch it on the other side of the dugout. I don't handle pitching that way.

Offensively, we did some great things. To get back in the game in the manner in which we did took some great at-bats.

Sometimes it takes one at-bat in one game for the light to go on. You can accomplish a lot by doing what we were doing with Duffy today.

I've never seen Curt Schilling go out and start a game with the intention of hurting people. But if you start hitting people in the head... you need to be very careful of that.

Think about the ... significance of ... how many at-bats he takes this year with men on base because the guy (Casey) hitting in front of him is going to be on base. There's going to be a number of times that he's going to come up to the plate with people on base and have the opportunity to either extend the inning, put a game away or extend leads. All those possibilities will be there.