6 of the first 8 games on the road.

We are ready to be at home. The first 8 games were a good test for our club, especially having to play 6 of them on the road. And not just on the road, but at two universities who have spent several years playing in the NCAA Regionals, Southern Mississippi and Stetson.

Our pitching has been the bright spot so far, throwing strikes and minimizing the big innings. To win on a consistent basis you have to pitch and pitch well. That means throwing strikes and not giving free bases to the other team. In conjunction you have to play good defense, and with our experience and talent on the field there is no reason to not play good defense.

Zach Pitts has handled the #1 role well setting the tone for the weekend by going at the hitters. He works fast and makes it easier to play defense behind him. The players know when he steps out there on Friday night we are going to get a quality start. The two freshmen, Tyler Mathis and Justin Marks have done well in their Saturday, Sunday roles as starters. We really had no choice but to throw them into fire and see how they would respond due to the way the schedule was set-up. They are very talented and have given us a chance to win in their combined 4 starts.

The bullpen is always a trial and error situation going into a season. Trystan Magnuson is the first guy out and gives us a chance to close a game out even if he has to throw 3 or 4 innings. It is almost like combining 2 starters to win one game. After that, Jimmy Belanger, Kyle Hollander, Kyle Thornton and Colby Wark ( all players we signed this summer or at the winter break, all rhp's) have done well coming out of the bullpen. There is no "closer" per say to this point as they all have the talent to get outs and we feel confident in running anyone of these guys out there with the game on the line. We need Andrew Salgueiro, another rhp, to be more consistent when he takes the rubber. Skyler Meade, Gavin Logsdon and Kenny Barnett are our 3 lefties out of the bullpen with Skylar getting two midweek starts already. He gets pulled after 3 or so innings so he can be available on the weekends.

Roger Williams, our Pitching Coach, has done an excellent job getting this pitching staff ready to compete.

After the weekend we will discuss the offense. Hope to see you at the ballpark as we play at Jim Patterson Satdium 11 out of our next 12 games.

Dan McDonnell
Head Coach