Certainly there were points of time when if a vote of confidence was coming, it would have come and didn't. So I'm not nave.

I just talked to Rob and he said it bothered him a little bit in the start in San Francisco and then in his last start in New York. At that point he talked to (pitching coach Rich Dubee) about it. (Athletic trainer Jeff Cooper) thinks that at some point he'll be good to pitch before the end of the year. But he won't be ready for Sunday. According to (assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle) Sunday was Gavin's day to throw. He'll join the club (Saturday) and pitch on Sunday.

I'm leaving a situation where, with a couple of changes during the off-season, this team should be in postseason play next year, ... It's a challenge for the next general manager.

In all of the conversations that we've had with Billy, we've told him that we would like to have him back here and get that worked out,

At 11 this morning -- or 11:30, when my phone rang -- I was doing household chores and expected to come in and spend some time working on our plans for next year, and being here tomorrow morning first thing to do those things, ... My energy and dedication hasn't been thinking about my next job. I was trying to do this job the right way.

At the same time, I think it's human nature, over 162 games, every once in a while, a player will get upset, ... But it can't be about that.

It was kind of a split camp. And most of the recent conversations were limited almost exclusively to using it for fair or foul calls. It wasn't with the thought of creating a mechanism for managers to challenge calls like in football.

It's been discussed at the general managers' meetings the last couple years,

It's something we'll have to address at some point,

I told our guys, there's still four months until Opening Day. We still have a third of the year. We still have time to see what develops.