I write this as I fly from New York to Los Angeles. I accompanied the team on the first two legs of this current trip as we played the Brewers and Mets and spent Monday visiting with my mother and family in New York.

The thing that sticks out on our first two stops was the clutch pitching of our two rookie left-handers, Hong-Chih Kuo and Eric Stults. They both gave us tremendous starts when we needed them. It was also very gratifying that Ken Howell, our Triple-A pitching coach was there to see them. In September, Major League clubs are allowed to add additional coaches, and we brought Kenny for the first two weeks of September. Ken did a tremendous job with both pitchers while they were under his tutelage at Las Vegas and I was happy that he was able to see his hard work pay off.

While we were on the road, our Double-A affiliate, the Jacksonville Suns, were knocked out in the first round of the Southern League playoffs. However, the team and the coaching staff of manager John Shoemaker, hitting coach Mike Easler and pitching coach Danny Darwin had a great year. The organization is very proud of their work and that of the team. Also John Shoemaker will be joing the Major League staff for the last two weeks of the season.

As for me, my job when I get back in the office is to organize our advance scouting effort for the playoffs. In about a week to 10 days we will send our professional scouts to scout our most likely potential opponents. They will send their reports in to LA where bench coach Dave Jauss organizes the information and distributes it to Grady, the staff and the players. Because of the amount of teams still in contention, the fact that we have to scout the American League teams as well, and the fact that I held the job of advance scout of the Pirates for a year, I also will be out on the trail.

Mark Weidemaier has been our advance scout for many years and is considered one of the best. He was joined by Dan Freed, who picked Weid up in the middle of the year to allow Mark to do some special assignment work. Both of those men will lead the effort.