This group of players realizes how close we were last year. We lost a tight ball game to the national champions (in the South Region championship). This season I think we know it's going to take a little more hard work to get us over the top.

Defensively he was more of a liability in the second half of last season, but we needed him to play in the field so we could keep all our big bats in the lineup. He thought his defense was the reason he wasn't drafted. Pro scouts - they don't just go after bats.

That's how important every game is. That's what we're preaching to the guys. We can't afford to look at what we did earlier in the year.

Being out here all day, it wears on you. It hasn't been spring break for us. But hopefully we'll get a big crowd for the weekend series.

It was about 70 percent for wanting to go at night. With the way our hitters are swinging the bat right now, we didn't want them taking any extra time off. It's also nice getting under the lights to practice for once.

We had brought in some speed guy for [the top] of the lineup and we needed someone to hit behind Cruz so Cruz would have something to hit at. Orlando led our team in hitting last year and I wanted him to do the same thing as he did last year.