Last weekend, we faced a good Washington team, and took two out of three from them in a fun and exciting series.

On Friday night, we faced Tim Lincecum, who is an extremely talented pitcher. I became friends with Tim last summer while playing on the Harwich Mariners together in the Cape Cod League. He's about 6 foot and 160 pounds, but this little kid throws the ball consistently 95 mph, and can pump it up to 100 mph. Let's just say that when we faced him, he was effective.

It was a great challenge getting into the box against a pitcher like Lincecum. Although I didn't have much success in my three at-bats against him, I did manage to get on base twice with a walk and hit by pitch. That night, Tim threw a complete-game shutout giving up only two hits. He was on it that night, and I tip my hat to him. But even if we did lose the opener to Washington, we did win the next two games to take the series.

Our series against Washington wasn't the only big story in Tempe over the weekend. The second-annual Arizona Ironman Triathlon took place on Sunday. The Ironman is a grueling three-event race that only the fittest athletes compete in. The race consists of a 2.4-mile swim in Tempe Town Lake, a 112-mile bike ride through Phoenix and a 26.2-mile run.

Our strength and conditioning coach, Jim Mancuso, is a tri-athlete and participated in the Arizona Ironman. Jim Mancuso is an alumnus of Arizona State University and played on the baseball team from 1992-95. He is in charge of conditioning our team in the fall and throughout the season. Cus' (what we call him) is an extraordinary person to have in our program. Cus' is not only our team's strength and conditioning coach, but in his free time, he is an attorney and trains as a tri-athlete. He is, in my mind, the most inspirational person I know. When I have days when I'm feeling tired and lazy, I think of Cus' and all that he accomplishes in a day; and I snap out of it and continue on with my day. I can't say enough about this guy, I hope to have as much pride and determination as Cus' has when I get older. I might train to compete in an Ironman one day and ask him to join me.

As our team heads into the middle of PAC-10 play, we are looking strong, and want to continue to play well as we take on the USC Trojans this week. Hopefully the Easter Bunny will help us put some runs on the board and get three wins, and leave the Trojans with three goose eggs. Or should I call them Easter eggs!!!

Talk to you guys next week.

Joe Pa

(photo courtesy of Arizona State Media Relations Office)