I was looking forward to finally putting this last stretch out of its misery and put the illness behind us. My fastball has some life in it.

Let us embrace, and from this very moment vow an eternal misery together.

He's obviously coming off an injury that's prevented him from doing anything in a live game. He might be, and I hope he is, a little rusty. We're going to make the Giants beat us. Not Barry Bonds. No man is bigger than any team. We're still playing the Giants. They have Bonds. Maybe that's going to throw them off a little bit.

I feel good about it. The clubhouse, all the guys have made themselves available. There is not a lot of ego in here, which is really nice. Everybody's able to be themselves and just have a good time. I feel really good about this team.

It's a challenge I'm willing to take on fully. If I can catch Jake in wins, obviously that would be a good thing. But at the same time I want Jake to get his wins, too. Right now it's a selfish time of the year for a pitcher. You want to get your wins; you don't want to have any losses.

I don't know how many months or days it's been. It's nice to get back on the horse.