Quotes to close the season

Here’s a few quotable lines after the Orioles’ dramatic 4-3 walkoff win over the Red Sox concluded their 2011 season…

“End of season like this, [to] make Boston go home sad, crying. I’ll take it all day,” said Orioles second baseman Robert Andino, whose two-out ninth-inning RBI was followed a minute later by Tampa Bay’s walkoff win, effectively ending a reeling Red Sox’s hopes of reaching the postseason.

“As tough as it’s been this last month, we weren’t ready to go home,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. “You want to go home when you dictate. Not when somebody makes you. It’s extremely disappointing.”

Conversely, the Orioles will head home with wins in six of their final eight games against the Red Sox, and a collective 11-6 record down the stretch. Whether their second consecutive September surge will carry over into next spring and beyond,  Orioles manager Buck Showalter –who has been heavily rumored to be a candidate to take over as the team’s next president/GM – wasn’t sure.

“Last year our record was better than the year before, and this year it’s better than last year, and I want to keep that up,” said Showalter, who –if he does move upstairs — will be faced with the tall task of reversing a trend of 14 consecutive losing seasons. “It may not seem like much to a lot of people who just look at it purely by the numbers, but it’s inch by inch, claw by claw.

We didn’t get where we were overnight and we’ve got to keep that type of relentlessness and not be denied. I don’t pay a lot of lip service about what we’re going to do and not do. Let’s see it. That’s what I’d be saying if I were the fans.”