It's been great to have another successful homestand and gain even more confidence about playing at home. I know that we have the best home record in the National League and when September comes that could be big. Just knowing that we play well here might help us win some important games.

We want to get out on this road trip and start playing with some more consistency. Going 1-4 on the last road trip was unacceptable mainly because we won the first game. That's just not going to cut it.

We've got four games in Pittsburgh and then three really big games in Philadelphia. It's hard to imagine we're six weeks into the season and we still haven't seen the Phillies. Last year, we'd seen them like nine times by now.

I remember going to Cincinnati in August last year with still a good chance to make the postseason. Then we lost three of four. That was bad because those were games that we thought we matched up well. When we go to Pittsburgh this weekend, we have to make sure we take advantage of the games where we match up well.

Going to Philadelphia will be fun because it's always a tough place to play. Everybody seems to be focusing on the Mets and Phillies right now. We want to show them that we'll be right there with them for the entire season.

I want to do this forum because I want people to be able to relate to what we go through every day  -- the ups and downs, the good times and the struggles.  I'd like to give people a sense about how it's sometimes tough to be away from home, especially while on long road trips like this recent one, which was just bad.

Also I'd like to tell some of the exciting stories from the season.  Hopefully we'll be able to talk about a pennant race during the final couple of months.  

The highlight of this trip was having the off day in Miami.  I got to spend time with my wife and a bunch of us got to go out to dinner together.  Just having a day to relax was great.  It's been such a weird road trip.  

I feel like the team hasn't been able to get in the groove that we want to be in.  I think we're looking forward to 16 or 17 days of straight baseball, where you can play every day and get in a groove.  It seems like we've been playing three or four days and then having a rainout or an off day.  

We just haven't been able to find it yet. Also, I think we need to pick up the intensity as a team.  When we played the Mets, we were intense and focused and we won those two games.  We have to take that way of playing into these other games too.   When there's 5,000 people in the stands you have to be able to keep that intensity and we haven't been able to do that.

There's no reason for us to panic yet. I think we're just waiting to make that run.  Last year we started out real hot and we know what happened.  I think it's just all about timing and when you hit a rough spot, you have to know how to get out of it.  

Injuries have prevented us from being the team that we wanted during these first two weeks.  I think we have to get back to getting guys healthy and start playing better.  

When I check in again in two weeks, hopefully we'll have gotten healthy and turned things around.