Mark on the season:
"Obviously, you can blame this season on the starting staff. We haven't been where we wanted to be or where we were at last year. Everyone had great stats last year, and I don't think you can expect every guy to duplicate what happened last season. But we are not close to what we did last year, and that has been our downfall. You look at our hitting and it's struggling, but [the offense] carried this team the first 80 to 100 games. The pitching staff hasn't been there all year. We have two or three good starts in a row, and [then] it seems like we have seven bad ones."
and on yesterday's game
"[My back] had nothing to do with it. I left some pitches over the middle and they took advantage. They have a good team over there, a good offense. If you throw stuff down the middle, they are going to do that."
I hope tonight's game is worthy enough to be considered 'big' by freddy!
Update [2006-9-8 17:46:20 by thewizardsofoz]: Joe Crede seems OK for Saturday, but trainer Herm Schneider says:
"His is more of a chronic problem that we probably need to address after this season. He's one that we need to address."
if he can't go Ozzie's ready to bring up from AAA-Charlotte Josh Fields:
"If we need a third baseman, we're going to bring him right away. With all respect to Charlotte and the owners, if Crede can't go, I'll bring him."
OK: Pablo Ozuna, Rob Mackowiak
Struggling: Scott Podsednik, Brian Anderson
Loves: Ryan Sweeney