We brought Jason here to be our leadoff hitter, so we're gonna stick with Plan A. I spoke with the Pirates hitting coach [Gerald Perry] this morning, and he said this is the time of year -- at least in the two years he was with [Kendall] -- that he turned it on.

We didn't have Crosby in April and then (starter Rich) Harden went down. We had our No. 3 hitter out of the lineup, some young guys in the rotation and we played the Yankees and Red Sox 12 straight games. That will give you a slow start.

[The difference] is a plan. He's got a really good plan on every hitter that goes up there, and he's able to execute.

You look at one game we lost against Baltimore early in the year. We had a missed call at first base, ... We lost the game by one run and there was three runs there. It should have been closed out of the inning, so everything's crucial.

I had a lot of maintenance my first year because we had six outfielders, so there were three guys every day who were pissed off because they weren't in the lineup. Last year we started with three first baseman and there was maintenance there. They were all veteran guys. This year we haven't had that.

The likelihood of him playing back-to-back is good.