We had to get a “W” before I could talk to you guys again! It’s just too hard to write when we hit a rough patch. May was very good to us and June has been very bad, but it’s not over yet. It sounds dumb, but we need to finish strong. There is still a lot of baseball to be played. It’s usually the goal of most teams to hit the All-Star break with a winning record, or something close to it. The closer we are to that at the break, the better we will feel.

I have said it before many times: This is a marathon, not a sprint. Right now, I’m just glad we are done playing the American League and that we have some divisional opponents coming up. Playing well against the division is the best way to make up some ground quickly.

Guys are starting to swing the bats better. Heath Bell had a rough outing the other night, but we gave him the ball again last night and he got the job done. We have Boni (Emilio Bonifacio) coming back, and when you have a guy like that coming off the DL, it can be just as good as a trade. We are going to need him if we are going to make a run at this thing.

Don’t give up on us yet, there are a lot of games left. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.