Kenny's rationale

"We've never been shy in making a deal here and improving the ballclub. When we searched around for the type of deal that would do that, nothing effective enough was out there."

"What we were looking for as far as Jermaine was immediate help or something better in prospects than the draft picks we would get [if Dye leaves as a free agent after the season]. This isn't a one-day affair for us. This is a process we've been working on for weeks. We weren't going to just make up a deal for change's sake. There wasn't one that made sense for us, so that's why it didn't come about. The one thing we tried to do in this room is put together championship pieces as we move forward. That means going out and asking about players like we were still one game out."

The big hurdle facing Cooper is making sure Contreras' off-the-field distractions are not the reasons for his landslide on the field. Contreras (5-14) and his wife are going through a divorce, and he hasn't seemed right since that news hit him at the start of the season.

"I'm not going to pawn it off on a personal problem," Cooper said. "Everyone has got 'em. Am I going to sit here and downplay it? No, divorce is a serious thing in anyone's life. It happens to a lot of people, though. Some people handle things better than others. I do know that Jose is an emotional guy. There has to be something there that affects his game, but this might be his sanctum, the place he can come and get away from it. That's not the reason he's pitching bad, and he would say the same thing. ... The missing links right now from when he was really good in that championship run. No. 1 is velocity, second is command and third is confidence. Yeah, that's a lot."

"We're missing that badly. A lot of people say there's an American League style and a National League style. No, there's a baseball style. Every time we execute well, when we hit-and-run, bunt, squeeze, we win games. I'm not the type of manager who likes to sit down and wait for three-run homers. ... Sometimes we need three hits to score Paul [Konerko] or [Jim] Thome or A. J. [Pierzynski]. We need to help those guys in the middle of the lineup [be] better too, because when you see guys on base running around, they're going to see more fastballs. This year we are poor at executing the hit-and-run [and] early in the season we didn't have many guys on base and when we did it was the big boys. "

Greg Walker agrees:

"When you have speed on the basepaths, you also have speed and more range on the field and that makes the defense better. And when you have good defense, that makes the pitching staff better. We're missing that, guys going out and getting balls [on defense]. Now we have Owens and Podsednik and we cover more territory. And now with Richar at second, he has a little more range [than Iguchi]. All those little things help you win games and people don't realize that."