SARASOTA, Fla. - I passed along a few quotes from manager Buck Showalter this morning before heading to the clubhouse. Here are a few more:
On the results of Justin Duchscherer's MRA and Brian Roberts' MRI:
"With him and Robby, there wasn't anything new going on there, but that doesn't mean everything is fine. There's still things that have been a challenge for both of them."
On whether Duchscherer has been eliminated from the opening day rotation:
"Not yet. But it's certainly in peril."
On Brian Roberts being ready for the opener:
"We feel like that's still a possibility.
On Koji Uehara:
"He's going to be back on the mound tomorrow. If that goes well, we hope to see him back out there by the weekend."
On Ryan Drese:
"That's a guy that had his second Tommy John surgery so he could have a quality life and play with his kids and play golf, and he started picking up a ball and throwing, and he said, 'Wow, that feels pretty good,' He called Mark (Connor) and threw three or four times for him, and the next thing you know, it's like, 'Let's take a look at this guy and see what happens.' He's very confident that we know what he's capable of. He can sink the baseball and make it look real easy at times. He's had two good outings and one when he was up a little bit, so I'm anxious to see how he throws today."
Drese hasn't been eliminated from consideration for the rotation. Showalter noted that Drese could provide starting depth at Triple-A Norfolk if he doesn't make the club.
"You can't just take five starters and not have anybody else capable of coming up here and helping us," Showalter said. "I'd love at the end of this camp to send the people down and have some real hesitation about whether we made the right move. Anybody who thinks we're going to stay with the same 12 pitchers all year, that's wishful thinking."
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