Brad had a fantastic year. He was just outstanding. When you don't notice the catcher, that's when he's having a good year. He didn't let anything get by him.

You have to let Edmonds hit the ball. You can't walk him and [catcher] Brad [ Ausmus ] knows that ... and that was a mistake.

He hit a slider where we like for Brad to throw it, and he got it up the middle. All along in this series, we talked about they were doing a nice job of hitting, and that was a classic case of it.

He's still very good, ... He's still better than good. But in comparison to last year, that's what I've seen since the end of last season.

There were a whole lot of things last year that made me nervous. Starting off last season, I did not think we had a good enough team to get to the playoffs, and the truth of the matter is the kids all stepped up and grew up in a hurry and we ended up playing great ball.

That's the biggest difference in their team this year. They don't look like they're going to strike out as much as in the past. When you put the ball in play, good things are going to happen.