I give Ken Rosenthal a lot of crap. I mean, A. Lot. Of Crap. But I'll applaud him for going to Luhnow for clarification on items he has issues with.
It's well worth your time, but here are few items of note...
On Bo Porter, re: Lowrie:
That's part of what makes him exciting and intrigues all of us about him - the emotion and the passion and the desire to win, that kind of football mentality...He believes in everything he's doing. I talk to him after (games), and he's typically very rational and convicted in what he does. He makes a lot of sense. At this point, I don't see any issue.
On Appel going to Extended Spring Training:
It was really my fault. I made a decision to send him out to Lancaster to have him try and build up there, to try to catch up for the time he missed in Florida. He ended up pitching twice on a four-day cycle and then he skipped a start and pitched on an eight-day cycle. It wasn't like he was in the tandem for a month and couldn't handle it.
On the Goatpen so far:
It's definitely a concern. We're underperforming relative to what I was hoping we would do. But I don't think it's time to press the panic button. We've got good, experienced major-league arms. And I think they will perform.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
