What did you see from your hitters versus San Diego?

“I thought we did a good job of separating balls and strikes and getting ourselves in good hitter’s counts. We had a few opportunities that we let get away -- maybe let a pitch go by that we probably could have gotten the job done on. It’s one of those things that we didn’t get it done. There wasn’t any stress or panic, it’s just one of those baseball things. If we did it over again we’d probably get those guys in most of the time.”

What was your mindset of getting to know the guys and maybe putting your own touches on their hitting approach?

“No. 1 is get to know them and earn their trust -- figure out who they are and help them understand who they are. It has been a long process of feeling them out and also there has not been a whole lot of instruction as far as changing guys. It’s more working with what they already do. I know a lot of kids nowadays have their own coaches who they work with on their swing and mechanics and stuff like that. I work within that and the strengths they already have.

"We talk about opposing pitchers and how to attack certain pitches, but the main thing we like to do is challenge them a lot and give them a lot of reps. Make things difficult and get them out of their comfort zone a little bit. Sometimes their mechanics break down. Personally I’m not huge on mechanics as far as having your swing be the same and perfect all the time. It’s more about being challenged with some overspeed or breaking balls. We like to work in that environment.”

How much time do you like to give to build up an idea of what is going right and what’s not going right with a hitter?

“It varies hitter to hitter. As far as working with someone individually, they have to be willing to listen before I can even get in there and start to help them. If they’re not ready for that it takes a little more time. Some guys are ready right out of the gate and want some help right away. Even then it’s kind of backing off a little bit. I don’t want to make it about their swing. I don’t want them to be thinking about their swing all the time. It’s not about their swing.

"When you pitch, you have the ball and you’re in control of where it goes. When you’re hitting, you have to react to what the pitcher is doing -- changing speeds, changing locations. You have all those things to account for. If you’re only focused on your swing, generally you’re focused on one spot. I always compare it to a bowler, a golfer and a pitcher are all in control. You can control that movement, that swing, because it’s the same all the time and the ball’s not moving or I have the ball.

"Whereas in hitting you’re reacting. I want to make it more about reacting and developing that hand-eye coordination. Sometimes we work where we’re breaking them down a bit by changing speeds, changing locations and it’s not always fun as a hitter, but the better you get at not breaking down when a pitcher is trying to break you down, the better you’re going to be."

Young hitters such as Kyle Stowers have talked about the importance of confidence. How have you worked with Kyle and others on that?

“Kyle has been working a lot. Putting in a lot of work and taking a lot of swings gives you confidence that you’ve done the work. You go up to the plate and you trust your swing. If you haven’t done the work you’re thinking about your swing and making it what it should be while you’re in the box.”

“Hitting is very, very psychological. You’re feeling great one day and then the next day you’re not. I think you see it with some other teams that come in here and they face Tristan (Beck) and Kris (Bubic) and all of a sudden they don’t feel very good. It’s funny how that works. I’ve seen that with other teams I’ve coached in the past that it can put a whole lineup into a slump facing pitchers like that.

“I think the mental side of it with Kyle it’s all about staying within himself and not trying to do too much. A lot of hitters are that way. They want to hit the ball far and hard and it’s all about hitting the ball hard and squaring it up. Sometimes to get there you don’t have to try to hit it so hard. You really just have to square it up … you don’t have to create more.”

Andrew Daschbach, Brandon Wulff and Kyle Stowers are your power guys and they’re also the walk leaders. What have you seen from their approaches at the plate?

“I have been really impressed with all three of those guys. They’re doing a very good job. For me when I’m evaluating our guys on how they’re doing I’m looking at are they swinging at the right pitches? If you’re swinging at the right pitches, the hittable pitches, then we like to talk about being able to get your swing off. We don’t talk a whole lot about approach and what we’re trying to do. All we’re really trying to do is get your swing off. That’s going to happen a lot more with a pitch you can handle. Ted Williams talked about getting a good pitch to hit.”

“We don’t talk about it a lot, but those guys have demonstrated they’re pretty good at it. The other thing I like to see is that 3-2 count. If you’re winning those 3-2 battles you’re going to having a lot of success at the plate. What I have seen from Wulff, Daschbach and Stowers is pretty mature approach and understanding what they can drive and what they can’t and swing at the right pitches. That’s half the battle right there, swing at the right pitch.”

Coach Esquer has noticed opposing pitchers are adjusting a little how they pitch to freshman Tim Tawa. Have you seen something similar and how has he dealt with that?

“Any hitter that has success teams are always going to adjust. Tim being a young hitter they don’t have a lot of scouting report on him. They start to see some things and break down video and think they can get him out a certain way. It’s up to the hitter to adjust. Nobody works as hard as Tim. He is in there as much as anyone. He’s not going to let anyone outwork him. He is going to do whatever it takes (and) whenever he feels teams are starting to adjust to him then he’s going to go in there and work on his weaknesses. He’s very aware of those.”

With Oregon coming in, what is it you like your hitters to know coming into a series?

“Really as little amount as possible. Just know the pitcher -- what type of guy they are, arm slot, velocity and what pitches they throw, which is all stuff you can get pretty quickly. It’s not rocket science. You look at a guy and say, ‘He’s like so-and-so.’ You compare him to someone on our staff because we scrimmage so much that it makes that comparison a lot easier. ‘Hey, this guy looks like Tristan based on his arm action and the pitches he throws.’

We kind of let the game come to us and make adjustments throughout the game. We don’t come into a game saying, ‘We’re going to do this.’ We have an idea of how things will go and we talk about it a little bit, but not a whole lot. I think our guys are going to do what they do well.”