That's something [director of pitching development] Dewey [Robinson] and the staff have really worked on in the last year or so, [improving] his mound presence. Not only him, but all the other pitchers in the organization. But that's really stood out.

I felt good leaving camp last year. I felt we had the deepest pitching staff we'd had. There are more questions this year, but Randy and Moose are throwing better, and our bullpen guys have really come around.

Our pitching staff is a conspiracy of ifs.

If you look around at everything that has happened to me, to the whole starting pitching staff, if we have had won all those little games, then the whole pitching staff should be Cy Youngs. It didn't happen for me to get those wins, but that doesn't mean I'm done working.

Early in the year we lost Ben for a while (to an inner-ear ailment) and as a pitching staff we picked up the slack pretty well, ... So this time we just got together and said, 'Hey, we've got to do the same thing here.'

They are more experienced this year. They were a relatively young team. Their pitching staff has grown this year. Traditionally, Hartsville has a good baseball program.