The last several starts have been good. He's been striking out a lot of people and going deep into the game.

The kid just goes out and plays. He's on a mission, it seems like. He went out the first three times up and took strikes, close pitches. It didn't bother him a lick. I don't think Nick puts any pressure on himself, that I've seen. He might if he struggles up here a little bit, but I've yet to see that.

He's obviously locked in. I don't know where we'd be without him.

If Erik were at 80 or 90 pitches he would've stayed in. He's one of these guys who's going to carry us throughout the year and there's no use in stretching him out to a point where he doesn't belong.

Good pitching makes you sluggish, at least makes you look that way.

Honestly, every time I pencil his name in there and he comes up in the rotation I'm counting on a good game. Whether I get it or I don't, I have that high hope.

I just think it's a failure to get one guy hot. You got nine guys in the lineup. You don't expect nine guys to scuffle. Someone is going to pay for it sooner or later. But that doesn't make me feel good at all. Sooner or later they're going to get their hits. We need them to do it sooner than later. Time is creeping up on us.

I probably would rather have not seen it. I'm sure that it helped a little bit, but if I were a betting man, I'd bet it drew attention to it and could possibly make it worse.

I haven't talked to anybody. We have a unique situation where everyone is out of a contract at the end of the year, so it's not surprising he hasn't done anything with me because he's got general managers to take care of, too. It complicates the situation, to say the least.

In the effort of trying to hold them down, he tried a little too hard, maybe. He just got a few balls up.