Jim Leyland

I think this guy's got a very bright future. You don't see stuff like that.

I'm not criticizing anybody, I'm not picking on anybody. You've got to give teams 27 outs. If you give teams 31 or 32, particularly a team that has the horses like the Yankees, you're going to get beat.

If somebody put a gun to my head and said, Give me your 25 players,' I could do it.

Everybody's got 10 people penciled in here, 10 people penciled in there. Wow, we've played three games and I don't know what the hell we're doing yet, to be honest with you. But I'll tell you one thing We're not going to give jobs away.

When we were in Pittsburgh, we had a decent pitching staff. But it became a damn good pitching staff because we had five Gold Glovers.

I think he's one of those guys that Earl Weaver talked about, when you get into the car, you come to the park and know that he's pitching for you, you feel pretty good. I certainly feel pretty good. I feel pretty good with all of them right now. They're all doing a good job. Hopefully, it's contagious and we can keep it up.

We stunk. The whole ball of wax was lackluster. It's been going on here before and it's not going to happen. . . . They were ready to get on the plane and go to Oakland. If we won, it was OK. If we lost, it was OK. And that's not good enough.

We played a good, clean game. It wasn't a sloppy game. But I'm not into that, either. We're here to win.

You might not see that for three months, Cleveland get shut out. That's how good they are. You have to enjoy this one.

This is good. I don't have any problem with this stuff. This kid gets to start in a Major League game. You look at the bright side. And I think our guys will be OK.

We have three or four good prospects. That's what I can tell you. Either it's going to be nice for me or for somebody else, however it works out.

I've always liked him, because he's always had great stuff and a great arm. His problem has always been health. When he's healthy, he's a quality Major League pitcher, without question. And if he can stay healthy ... that's always been an issue.

Your heart is blowing out of your shirt.

It just breaks my heart.

I really like him -- he's very smart. We've got ourselves a hell of a big league pitcher.

Hell of a job. I'm proud of them.

To be honest with you, there's not a guy in this clubhouse that knows for sure if they're ready.

I think for a young hitter, he uses the whole field as well as any young hitter. I think that's probably the biggest thing, to be honest with you.

I think it's just a respect factor. I think he's earned that over his career. And I loved his response. He's flattered. He said 'Thank you. It's an honor. I'll be ready go.' It was totally professional.

I'm glad I took the job. I hope I'm still saying it in August.

I don't consider four games much of a national spotlight. I certainly hope this isn't our highlight.

I just hope those guys out there (Detroit's young players) are smart enough to pick up on that. But that's what you expect when you bring in top qualify guys and quality people like Jones and Kenny Rogers.

Mac is going to be a tremendous coach, but I hope he doesn't coach long. I hope he's managing again. He'll be tremendous for us. He's been in this seat before, and that's important. When you haven't been in this seat, coaching is different. He knows how to handle players, he knows all the aggravations (a manager) can have, he knows how tough the job can be. I'm sure he's going to be a big help for me.

I hope they're Tiger fans and I hope they come anyway, but you never know how it's going to turn out.

Our closer (Todd Jones) is gone. Our setup guy (Fernando Rodney) is gone. Four regulars are out. Two other regulars are hurt. I'm just going to look at the bright side and take a look at our kids.