John Schneider

It seems like pitching has been really steady, and...

we're getting some traffic it's just stringing and sequencing those hits together or subbing some of the hits with some slug you know so that needs to get going pretty you know pretty quickly here and I think pitching needs to kind of hold serve but it's frustrating I think when you're playing so many close one run games it feels like every night is kind of a one run game and

You want to have a few in a row where you get some separation.

You can use some other guys in the bullpen.

So, yeah, we feel it.

You know, we feel better about the way we're playing.

But you want to really start to stack some wins together.

I think that's kind of where our base running uptick last year.

I think kind of the offensive identity came together a little bit.

and that's kind of where we're striving to get to right now.

When you look at all phases of the game, I feel like defensively we've kind of gotten back to where we should be.

Pitching is where we should be.

I always look at the offensive part, both on the bases and at the plate, to where you've got to string together some good at-bats.

we're definitely missing some slug from some guys that we thought would be a little bit more to this point of the year, and it makes it tough to string together some innings or some big innings at that, so that's kind of where it took off, I think, is you have the consistent approach, you have guys that are going to work counts, get on base, kind of missing the slug, you know, and until you get that, you've got to really, really string some hits together.

I think there's certain consistencies that you always want to have, and then you react around the personnel that you do have every year, right?

So things that we definitely want to do or continue to do is.

Put the ball in play for sure.

I think the base running, you know, in terms of hit advancement, first to third, second to home, that's kind of the things we talk about.

And then not being afraid to take some shots before two strikes.

And then, you know, the contact, we want to come with two strikes.