“I've always been taught to play the game hard. Baseball is such a tough game, it really humbles you at times, you just have to try not to get too high or too low.''

“I don’t really like the spotlight.”

“I didn’t go up to the plate thinking, ‘OK, my goal now is to get a hit’—I tried not to think about [the streak].”

“I felt really comfortable. It takes a lot of luck as well."

"I didn't know what to expect coming to college. High school was pretty easy and I guess I expected college to be along the same route. It was just an overwhelming experience."

"I figured out that there are occasions where you have to get pumped up and take charge, situations where you have to have fun and situations where you need to settle down."

“You're going to bat so many times during a season and it's not worth getting mad about. I still get frustrated, but I try not to let the other team know that.“

"Before, shortstops and second basemen were mostly defensive guys that made all the plays and didn't really hit that well. But now it's beginning to change a little bit. Now, shortstops and second basemen are very productive in terms of run producing.”

"I've said this before, but going and playing with the guys that have been to the World Series, the elite players of the game, there's no harm in hanging around those guys at all."

"I'm definitely not the most graceful person out there. I've always been taught to play hard. I don't know how not to play hard. But for some guys it just looks easier. For me, it's not that natural."

“I never want to look in the mirror and say, ‘What if? What if I had run harder? What if I had dived for that groundball?’”

“The harder you play this game, the more you get out of it.”

"You try to take it game-to-game and keep working."

"The majority of the time with two strikes I'll choke up on the bat a little bit to try to stay as short as possible. It doesn't always work out like that, but that's the goal."

“Every day, you try to put a game plan together, and you try to get on base for the next guy. Having Ryan and Jayson and Raul hitting behind me, those guys can drive in a lot of runs. The more guys on base we have, the better opportunity we have to score some runs.”

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