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Baseball Today: Tuesday, April 3 »
April 2, 2007
What they were saying ...
GIL MECHE: “I’ve never admitted to being nervous before a game ... but this one was a little nerve-racking. I felt fine until I actually got across the white lines and thought to myself, ‘This is opening day. This is a big deal.' “I’ve always been nervous opening day, and I’ve never pitched opening day.” --AP
MECHE (on his standing ovation): “It was great, something I’ll never forget, being a part of this. The standing ovation was an unbelievable feeling for me.” --AP
CURT SCHILLING: “Physically, I felt fine. I just didn’t execute and didn’t adjust. One thing I’ve always preached to young pitchers is about the ability to make a mistake on a pitch and come back and make an adjustment on the very next pitch. I didn’t do that today.” --AP
TERRY FRANCONA (on taking Schilling out after four innings): “Four innings, 89 pitches. Those were four hard innings.” --AP
MARK GRUDZIELANEK: “I’m sure Curt didn’t have his good stuff. I had the approach in the past where I was way too aggressive with him. I tried to really make sure I got a pitch that I could hit, drive, It was just one of those things where it worked out today where I got decent counts and got him to throw something over the plate.” --AP
JOE BUCK (on his home run off Sox reliever Hideki Okajima): “I knew it was his first pitch in the big leagues. I figured he was going to try to be aggressive with his first guy, so I was just looking for my pitch out over the plate. He happened to throw it right there. It was a good pitch to hit, a fastball.” --AP
OKAJIMA (on Buck's homer): “I was surprised, because I thought the batter would look at the first pitch because he didn’t know me. But instead of looking, he hit it.’’ --SEAN McADAM
OKAJIMA (on settling down): “My experience in Japan helped a lot about settling down. A home run is a home run. I moved on. I concentrated (after that) and I executed.’’--SEAN McADAM
FRANCONA (on Okajima's performance): “The first pitch didn’t go as planned. He tried to get ahead and Buck hit it good. After that, he pitched pretty good.’’--SEAN McADAM
FRANCONA (on Dustin Pedroia base-running blunder and overall performance): “His timing was OK, with two outs but he was a little too aggressive. But the good news is he’s swinging the bat well.’’--SEAN McADAM
SCHILLING: "I made mistake after mistake. Part of being a No. 1 is going out and winning when you don’t have your best stuff. It was one of those games where I didn’t execute."--SEAN McADAM
FRANCONA (on Schilling): "He didn’t command. He was up with a lot of his pitches. It was tough for him right from the get-go -- a lot of deep counts."--SEAN McADAM
KEVIN YOUKILIS: "If you’re going to get upset at losing one game, it’s going to be a long year. If a team loses only 60 games in a season, that’s a great year. People are going to get all worried. We want to win them all, but I don’t think anybody ever went 162-0."--BOSTON GLOBE
MIKE LOWELL (on Schilling): "For him, he's so pinpoint. I'm not really too worried about his location for the season. He'll be fine. I would have bet my house he wouldn't walk a guy with the bases loaded, but it happens." --MLB.com
Posted by Corey Bourassa 
at 8:43 PM | Permalink
rp | April 2, 2007 9:06 PM link
schilling is 40 years old, and his name is not roger clemens. our number one starter should not be that old. after spending all that money and after showing the stuff he did in spring training there is no reason why dice-k shouldnt have been on the mound today.