That ball right there I was fouling off to the first baseman in foul territory, trying to stay inside that ball, ... This time, I tried to get the [bat] head out, get my hands out. That's kind of where I need to be. I could finish the season on that note so I can take that into the Dominican.

It's devastating. He's the captain, the team leader. I don't know the situation, but I hope he gets back as soon as possible. The only compensation is we've got guys that can take his place. Eli (Marrero) and Jason (Smith) can play the position.

He's kind of like that sheep dog that keeps showing up in the cartoon, ... He punches in, punches out, he doesn't have a whole lot to say. But you look up at the board and he's got double-digit homers [10], he's got [63] RBIs. As I've said all year long, he's hit the ball harder, with more consistency, and made more hard outs than anybody on this ballclub right now. Anytime you've got Todd Helton on your ballclub, that's something.

We're not rookies anymore, and we've got a year under our belts. Every little bit counts as far as experience goes, and hopefully, every year we get a little bit better. This year, we're expecting to play better and for better things to happen.

It was nice to finish with the team and finish in the same year I got hurt. That way I didn't have to wait until now to get back. It's behind me. I've moved on and I'm excited about this year. I'm fully healthy and I'm ready to go.

If I could do it all over again and I was going to get hurt, obviously, I'd rather do it on the field where everybody could see it and I wouldn't have to deal with everything and all the different stories that came out. It's a freak accident. It happened. I deal with it everyday. It comes up all the time, and I know it probably will for the rest of my career.