Media Day: Ryan Pope

On his increase in velocity: “It was just from the end of last year, the last couple games of last year, my velocity went up.  I got to spring training and it stayed the same, so that’s a good thing…hopefully I can keep that going all year.  It was just the tempo, speeding things up.  I kept that and went from there.”

On carrying momentum from the second half of last year into 2010: “You forget about (the first half).  You’re going to have your ups and downs, but you’ve got to forget about the bad stuff but also learn from what happened.  I think this year, it’s a clean slate.  Just start over and do what you can do.”

On going to big league camp: “It was huge.  You get to see how the big league guys work out, and you get to watch and learn from what they do.  You take as much confidence from that as you can, and I think I did that.”

On his 2010 goals: “To make it to the big leagues.  I’m not here to stay.  I want to get to the big leagues, and hopefully I’ll be here as short as possible.  I’m just going to go out there every start, do my best, and give it everything I’ve got.  If they want to move me, that’s fine…if not, I’ll stay here and keep doing what I’m doing.”

Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com