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Prior to tonight's game with the Phillies, Riggleman was asked how he plans on handling his offense players when it comes to them losing a step.

"I never like to use that word 'fatigued' or 'tired,'' he said. "I think it gets way over used in baseball. We're not running up and down the court, we're not playing football with equipment on in 100 degree temperature. It's a baseball game; it's not a physically taxing sport.

There is a drain on you as a player with travel, pressure of performing every day; it's not once a week or three times a week. There is a ball game every day and you're out there. I think a break needs to be taken every now and then, get a player a day off now and then.

For myself, I tell players, if you're tired, you have to take better care of yourself, you have to prepare better. I don't believe that the 32-ounce bat should get heavy in August and I don't think you should ever concede to that.

You just go hard and some mental struggles take place because you're having some bad days or whatever; I use those to give a bench player some at bats, not because I think you're physically fatigued. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

My feeling is you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you get physically tired of playing baseball because it shouldn't be that physically taxing. I could point to Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripken, Jr. and I think they would be on my side in that argument, but I don't expect everybody to be like that. I think guys need off days so that the other players can also stay sharp, so I won't concede to the fatigue factor."

Yesterday, Riggleman talked about playing to win every game and today he was asked why he instills that philosophy when there is nothing to play for in terms of playoffs.

"That's what you're supposed to do, that's competition," Riggleman said. "When we play baseball, we're supposed to try and win. Last year in Seattle we were trying to win, we weren't trying to just play it out and draft Stephen Strasburg next year. We were trying to win the games.

I think that if I'm a paying fan, I want to see the team trying to win, I want the manager trying to win, I want intensity, I want players playing hard, I want guys running balls out, I want effort and preparation, so all those things, in a perfect world, will carry over to the future.

If you get to August and you say 'we're out of it, let's don't put our best people out there' then I think that you create an atmosphere where you are accepting it. You're accepting where you are and we can't accept what's happened here this year. We have to find out who the keepers are and build for the future. Take an attitude of we are losing but these teams are having a heck of a time beating us and they realize we are creeping up on them and we are going to continue to creep up on them. The level of intensity we play with has got to be taken into the future.

If I send a message to the ball club we're going to put our Triple-A callups out there on a daily basis to see what they can do, like I said it's not a good time to evaluate talent and who do you do it against?

Do you do it against the Phillies, who I think we would be insulting the Marlins and Braves who are chasing the Phillies. Do you do it just against the Braves and not against the Phillies? The competition throughout the league indicates for the fairness of who is the best team in the division, you have to put your best people out there to play against those guys.

If you get a couple of games where you're playing a non-contender, you might expand it a little bit more and get some guys some games, but I think until the division is won and the Wild Card is won, we have an obligation to the other contenders to put our best players out there against the tip teams."