Head coach Tony Gwynn and Strasburg answer questions from the media.

May 4, 2009

SAN DIEGO - San Diego State head coach Tony Gwynn
Opening Statement:
"It was an interesting weekend. We actually played pretty good baseball with the exception of the second game on Saturday, but anytime you go on the road its gong to be tough. Santa Clara really played us tough, but we came out of there winning three out of four. We have a whole week off to get ready for Air Force this weekend and we're in a position where we need to win as many games as we can. It's what I said last week, nothing has really changed. Air Force is going to come in here and they're going to play you tough. I don't care what they're record is, these guys are going to come out and they're going to play you hard. And we're going to have to play our best baseball to beat them. The conference kind of flipped a little bit this past weekend. New Mexico lost a couple of times. BYU and TCU got rained out and so conference is going to be decided on win percentage. So for us, if we can win the last six conference games, we're going to finish no worse than second place. I think for our guys that should be a huge incentive. The first two teams get a game off in the conference tournament, you get a bye. That's one less game that you have to win. All of the things are there in place for us to take advantage of, if we can. That's what we're going to try to do. We're going to work hard this week and hopefully start to play our best baseball here coming down the stretch."

On figuring the amount of wins necessary to get an NCAA bid:
"I've done that for the last month. Just trying to keep track of what's going on out West, Pac-10, West Coast Conference, Big West, I don't know what the number of wins is going to take because in our conference we've only gotten one team in. We've never had the luxury of knowing that you don't have to win the conference tournament to get in. That's the way it's been for our conference. You have to win the conference tournament to get the automatic bid. I believe its going to be different this year. We have five teams over five hundred (winning percentage). This year the conference has done extremely well. But you just don't know. So your only remedy is to take it out of their hands. If you win the conference tournament, you're in. That's how we're going to approach it. We're going to try to win as many games as we can coming down the stretch. We've got seven left and you'd love to win them all and go into the conference tournament and win the conference tournament, and then you don't have to worry about it. We won't have a sleepless night that Sunday night. You just got to know that you're going to be playing somewhere and that's kind of the way you want it to be."

On Stephen Strasburg handling all the attention:
"Stephen has gone out there and he's pitched extremely well. He's matured and he's handled all this stuff. He's the reason why all you guys (media) are sitting here today. He's handled it very, very well for a 20-year-old. You just can't expect a guy this young to be able to handle all this stuff that goes on. You guys don't see what happens on the road. It's like traveling with a rock star now. Fans are hanging around the bus, they've got their cards, pictures, and Sports Illustrated's, and all they're stuff. For me, it's kind of nice. I love the fact that they want someone else's autograph. That part of it has been fun. But when we go on the road, these same questions you ask, they're being asked all the time. He's handled it great."

San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg:
On last home game of the season:
"I'm excited just to come out here and pitch at home again. We've had great crowds the last few outings here. You never know. I think if we win enough games and win the games we're supposed to win, we could be playing here again."

On huge attendance at SDSU baseball games:
"I think a lot of people come out to watch the Friday night games. Personally I think that's the way college baseball should be. It kind of reminds me of watching games down South, where they saw crowds on a regular basis. Hopefully that's something that's going to continue to happen on the west coast and at San Diego State."

On media attention affecting him:
"It hasn't. Bottom line is I'm trying to help this team get to a regional and win a conference tournament. That's my number one goal right now."

On playing in road games:
"It's just a different atmosphere. You're going to get some college kids heckling you during the game and you're going to expect big crowds and you're going to expect the other team to be ready to play and it's just a great atmosphere. When you go out there, you expect that every team is going to think that they're the team that's going to knock you off, and I like the challenge."

On receiving advice from Coach Gwynn:
"Coach Gwynn and Coach Filter sat me down before the season. I've just remind myself, what I'm trying to do out there and what's really important. Bottom line, I'm not playing the game to be the number one pick, I'm playing the game because I love it, I love this team, and I really want to help this program to get to the next level. Hopefully playing in the big leagues is somewhere down the road. A lot of the times it's really the ride that I enjoy, not the destination."