Kenny's message to the teams' youngsters:
"The young guys' message was more along the lines of playing the game to win vs. playing the game for numbers. And I pointed to a Danny Richar, who is hitting [.171 after Thursday's game], but has shown professional at-bat after professional at-bat -- he is still taking his walks. Or Andy Gonzalez, who is coming off the bench and giving you quality at-bats. So it's not all about batting average, and they need to understand that that walk that they take, that eight-pitch at-bat, that 10-pitch at-bat, wearing the pitcher down is just as important to the team's chances as that base hit. Everyone wants to get a base hit. The reason why I'm standing here is I didn't get enough of them. But in terms of what we are trying to do in terms of a team, the young guys needed to understand they are not solely being evaluated on their batting average. I want to see if they can grind out at-bats. I want to see if they can situationally do things, if their heart is in it. Those are the things that will be a greater indicator."
on Fields and what to do at 3rd next year:
"Josh needs to focus on third base. He has shown me that he obviously can hit here. I know it doesn't seem this way because we're used to Joe Crede, but I watch 29 other teams as well, and Josh handles himself well at third base. It's a tough decision, because you don't want to shortcut his development at third base when there are still so many questions on whether or not Joe's going to come back and come back in the fashion that he was before. So you can very well find yourself in a situation where you move one guy out, then you try to bring him back in if the other guy can't do it, and you cut off your nose to spite your face."
and on Crede's progress:
"I hear that he is doing better. It's a little difficult to keep tabs on that situation for reasons I would rather not go into."
Floyd is going to the bullpen, again. Here's Ozzie:
"We are going with Floyd in the bullpen. I don't want to play games with this kid, starting one day and you don't know the next day. I want him to prepare mentally to be out there every day and know his role on the club. We are going to bring back Jose, and hopefully, he stays there for good. Hopefully, Jose wins the game, but I want him to be what he was out of the bullpen. He was pretty impressive and what we want him to be. I know he wants to be that way."
BTW, Phil Rogers has some ideas for next year.
UPDATE: And here's the latest Palehose 7 strip: The Nightmare