Hearing from Johnson, Strop and Jones

CHICAGO - I'm heading to the airport shortly for my flight back to Baltimore, where it better be warmer. But first, here are some quotes from Jim Johnson, Pedro Strop and Adam Jones. Johnson: On the late drama: "You said it. I wasn't trying to make it as dramatic as it was, but it's good to get three out of four here. We want to keep it going." On getting his sixth save: "It's just the way the game's being played. We're battling. We're had a lot of close games this whole road trip. It seems like every game we're tied in the sixth. The way that we're playing and the way we're pitching out of the bullpen, you have to give them credit." On the impressive start to the season: "I think it's been a little bit of everybody. (Jason) Hammel, he really battled his butt off today. He very easily could have folded with the way things were going in the early part of the game. The rest of the bullpen did their job and the guys came up with that three-run inning, so it's a good team win." On Hammel: "He's given us quality innings. Any time we have a guy we feel we can lean on to pick us up, that's always a sense of relief for us and it makes our job easier and it keeps guys healthy. It kind of has a chain effect on the rest of the guys. He's a guy we want taking the mound every fifth day and we're happy to have him." Strop: On the bullpen: "We're a team and we're together. I'm so happy that each guy that we have in the bullpen they trust the other guy can do the job. That's why it's the way it is." On bouncing back in the eighth after allowing a run: "You have a chance to win and I just try to do my best to give the team the opportunity to win." On Hammel and the other starters: "It's pretty important for our starters to give us six, seven, eight innings because we really don't have a long relief guy. We're just going to deal with whatever guy we have in the bullpen. Either way, all our starters have been pretty good at this point." Jones: On team's confidence: "We have a good group of guys. Most of these guys have won, are coming from other organizations and we're feeding off them and they're offering us good advice on how to win. And we've got a different mindset in here this year. We're not letting up on anybody." On the Anaheim series: "We've just got to go win tomorrow and not really worry about the whole entire weekend. We've got to win tomorrow and that's what's most important. It's not about the whole series, it's about tomorrow." The bullpen allowed one run in 13 1/3 innings over these four games. The Orioles are batting .247 on this trip. They hit .243 against the White Sox. Nick Markakis is batting .348 (8-for-23) with four doubles, a homer and seven RBIs against Gavin Floyd. Manager Buck Showalter needs seven more wins to reach 1,000 in his career.