As the sun sets on a gorgeous summer evening, Mikey Blackhawk looks like a man in his element: Navy blue helmet on, sitting on a folding chair outside the home dugout at Halliwell Park, iPad in his left hand, stylus in his right, scrolling through his Post 4 Razorbacks team’s statistics early in the season, including Friday’s 10-0 and 11-10 wins over Shelley.

As Blackhawk thumbs through the blue and white text, it becomes clear that to reach their 6-0 mark, the single-A Razorbacks have posted similar numbers. In fact, they’ve registered double-digit runs every time out thus far: 14-1 and 11-0 over Blackfoot, 12-2 and 11-4 over Rigby, and now these two victories over Shelley.

That’s when Blackhawk begins to point out the individuals who have engineered this scintillating start: Hudson John, one of four players hitting better than .500, has a .550 average. His son, Elias Blackhawk, is hitting .462, making him one of four Razorbacks to clear the .400 mark. For these guys, though, the best part is that all eight of those players have registered an OPS better than 1.100.

Translation: These Razorbacks have started hot.

“We’ve got dudes from our one-hole to our nine-hole that can hit,” Blackhawk says, looking up from the tablet. “All the way to 14. I’ve got 14 dudes that can swing the bat. This is one of those double-dips that we can get everybody in and get everybody some swings, and really evaluate what we have right now the more we go into our season. So yeah, it’s not too bad, man.”

That’s the kind of understatement that might win Blackhawk an award. For the Razorbacks, things haven’t just been not too bad. They’ve been spectacular. Eight guys are hitting north of .400. They’ve all recorded at least five hits. They’ve ended four games early thanks to the run rule.

And we haven’t even gotten to the club’s pitching staff.

The leader on that front is Garett Keller, a rising junior at Pocatello. He’s tossed two outings. He’s won both. In total, he’s allowed one earned run. He’s fanned 13 batters and walked just one. In Friday’s Game 2, he tossed 4 1/3 innings of four-run (one earned) baseball, striking out four. In Game 1, Elias Blackhawk twirled five innings, yielded four hits and struck out six batters. Plus, Maddox Moore has posted six innings on the mound, earning an ERA of 1.17.

“We’ve got some other dudes that haven’t even thrown yet,” Blackhawk says, pointing to names like John, Kannon Kunz, Cooper Snyder, Kudter Stucki.

Wait, is Blackhawk pitching the entire roster?

“Yeah,” he responds with a straight face. “That’s the big thing about legion: you’ve gotta have depth. You’ve gotta have a lot of pitchers, because there’s some weeks where we’re gonna play six, seven games a week. Tournaments, we’re playing a handful of games over three days, and you’ve gotta have some depth. And we have depth.”

Get to know Blackhawk a tad and you realize that philosophy bleeds into his other one, which is all about playing his guys all around the diamond. Nobody gets attached to one position. Compare the Razorbacks’ Game 1 against Rigby and the Game 1 against Shelley: Blackhawk played second base, then pitched. Alex Romreill played third base, then second base. Keller played shortstop, then second base. John stayed at first base for both of those contests, but you get the idea.

Blackhawk admits this approach doesn’t always go over like good news. Some players get used to playing one position because they’ve been coached by their dad, their uncle, some family member who has slotted them at first base their whole lives.

“We let them do that for the first little bit,” Blackhawk says, “and then they see if they don’t wanna expand and try other positions, they’re gonna limit themselves in playing time. Summertime kids wanna get on the field and they wanna play, and I think it kinda opens their minds up to, hey, maybe I should play more than one position. So overall, it’s not a bad deal at all.”

So far, nothing about this season has been. But the Razorbacks won’t return to Haliwell for another week. On Sunday, they’ll headed to Boise for a twinbill against Bishop Kelly. Then, on Thursday, they’ll visit Billings, Montana. Then, Cheyenne, Wyoming, then Great Falls, Montana, and…

Again, you get the point.

But the one Blackhawk wants to stress most is this: These games are fun, especially when you’re winning, but it’s not exactly the entire goal.

“Baseball is bigger than playing on the field, man, it’s about making them some good dudes,” Blackhawk says. “That’s our main goal. We just want them to be good dudes off the field.”