We have not had the chance to play much in the Midwest. We spend most of our schedule in Arizona and California in our preseason, then throughout our conference, which includes UNLV, Air Force, New Mexico, San Diego State and Utah. We are only a six-team baseball conference. The strengths of our team, I believe, are that we have a young, but I think a deep pitching staff, and they have all contributed to the success that we've had so far this season. I also think that one of our strengths is that we have a pretty good offensive team, and we play situational baseball pretty well.
Guys are willing to sacrifice an at-bat in order for the team to score a run.
That has been critical to our success. BYU, in the past, has been accused of sitting around and waiting for three-run home runs. That may be okay when you played in the little band box that we used to have, but now our field is legitimate, and it is more difficult to hit a home run. Plus, when you go to sea level, it doesn't do any good to sit around and wait for a three-run home run because the ball doesn't carry as well, so you don't have nearly the success. So we felt that one of the key fundamentals that we needed to teach and to learn was to move runners along, whether it be by the bunt or hitting the ball to the right side to advance runners.