Photo by Matt Sachs, TexAgs
Texas A&M Baseball
Key quotes from Rob Childress interview
“It wasn’t just the one inning of work on Sunday, it was Turner’s overall body of work in the fall and into the spring. 88-92 and can go better than that when things are right. He’s got four pitches, really good curveball and outstanding slider, just really competitive. I feel like he’s going to get us off to a great start.”
“It’s exciting to work with these guys, they get better each time they get on the mound, whether it’s bullpen or a game. I know Turner is looking forward to tonight; we got to see Brigham Hill on Saturday and Kyle Simonds was outstanding on Friday, we’ll have him back available in first relief tonight.
“Kyle was outstanding, he faced 13 hitters and threw 13 first pitch strikes, you cant do better than that. He was in total control. He can really sink the ball, work fast and threw a ton of strikes. There was no doubt he was in charge when he was on the mound. I like having his energy coming out of the bullpen right now. Not to say he can’t start, he proved that at the junior college level, we might very well see that in the next month. For now, I just like having that card coming out of the bullpen for us.”
“They have played four games in four days. They played yesterday against Washington State and lost a tough one, 4-3. They had a tournament this weekend with Missouri State, UT- Arlington and Washington State, so they’ve gotten a chance to get to know their team in a hurry. The guy that raises your blood pressure in the middle of the line up is Kyle Thornell, left handed hitter and is an older guy. From an offensive standpoint, they’ve stolen 13 out of 14 bases. They want to put pressure on you, so we have to do a great job of getting the lead off hitter and grabbing the lead early to slow that down a bit.”
“I was very pleased with the guys. There’s always room for improvement and I think our guys understand that. We have to play better defense, especially on the dirt, which is something we have to eliminate as you start playing closer games the mistakes become magnified. From an offensive standpoint, we couldn’t have asked for anything better, it is what we saw from our guys all fall. To be able to take that into the true season is a thing that I think will allow us to roll for a while.”
“The ball is getting through the infield faster and you’re starting to see more offense across the country this past weekend than there was this time last year. Still, the old adage holds true, if you make good pitches, you can get the best in the country out. When we’ve done that, we have gotten hitters out and when we haven’t, obviously anybody can get a hit. For the most part, I thought we did a good job on the mound this weekend.”
“Anytime you have guys that have a great fall, you hope they didn’t use up all their hits. Ronnie had an amazing fall, hit .400, 11 doubles and six homeruns. He could not have gotten off to a better start this past weekend. He can cover both sides of the plate and has as much power as anyone we have.”
“The lineup that we have out there right now is extremely long, you can’t come up for air and catch your breath with anybody. I’ve said it before, but our pitchers are really glad they don’t have to face our lineup anymore. It’s been one that they had to struggle through this fall and early spring. I know our pitchers are glad they get to face other pitchers besides ours.”
“Both of those guys were fantastic. A.J. Minter, with all the energy and excitement of opening day and the great crowd we had, was in total control of the day. Give Holy Cross credit, they did a great job of fouling off a lot of pitches and took a lot of pitches from him, only allowed him to go five innings. Matt Kent on Sunday did exactly what he did in the fall, just suffocates you with strikes. Had we not made a couple errors in the first inning that cost him 10-12 pitches, he would have gone into the 8th or 9th inning. I think he ended up at 85-90 pitches through seven and was just really good.”
Rob Childress on opening series sweep, pitching rotation and lineup
Key quotes from Rob Childress interview
“It wasn’t just the one inning of work on Sunday, it was Turner’s overall body of work in the fall and into the spring. 88-92 and can go better than that when things are right. He’s got four pitches, really good curveball and outstanding slider, just really competitive. I feel like he’s going to get us off to a great start.”“It’s exciting to work with these guys, they get better each time they get on the mound, whether it’s bullpen or a game. I know Turner is looking forward to tonight; we got to see Brigham Hill on Saturday and Kyle Simonds was outstanding on Friday, we’ll have him back available in first relief tonight.
“Kyle was outstanding, he faced 13 hitters and threw 13 first pitch strikes, you cant do better than that. He was in total control. He can really sink the ball, work fast and threw a ton of strikes. There was no doubt he was in charge when he was on the mound. I like having his energy coming out of the bullpen right now. Not to say he can’t start, he proved that at the junior college level, we might very well see that in the next month. For now, I just like having that card coming out of the bullpen for us.”
“They have played four games in four days. They played yesterday against Washington State and lost a tough one, 4-3. They had a tournament this weekend with Missouri State, UT- Arlington and Washington State, so they’ve gotten a chance to get to know their team in a hurry. The guy that raises your blood pressure in the middle of the line up is Kyle Thornell, left handed hitter and is an older guy. From an offensive standpoint, they’ve stolen 13 out of 14 bases. They want to put pressure on you, so we have to do a great job of getting the lead off hitter and grabbing the lead early to slow that down a bit.”
“I was very pleased with the guys. There’s always room for improvement and I think our guys understand that. We have to play better defense, especially on the dirt, which is something we have to eliminate as you start playing closer games the mistakes become magnified. From an offensive standpoint, we couldn’t have asked for anything better, it is what we saw from our guys all fall. To be able to take that into the true season is a thing that I think will allow us to roll for a while.”
“The ball is getting through the infield faster and you’re starting to see more offense across the country this past weekend than there was this time last year. Still, the old adage holds true, if you make good pitches, you can get the best in the country out. When we’ve done that, we have gotten hitters out and when we haven’t, obviously anybody can get a hit. For the most part, I thought we did a good job on the mound this weekend.”
“Anytime you have guys that have a great fall, you hope they didn’t use up all their hits. Ronnie had an amazing fall, hit .400, 11 doubles and six homeruns. He could not have gotten off to a better start this past weekend. He can cover both sides of the plate and has as much power as anyone we have.”
“The lineup that we have out there right now is extremely long, you can’t come up for air and catch your breath with anybody. I’ve said it before, but our pitchers are really glad they don’t have to face our lineup anymore. It’s been one that they had to struggle through this fall and early spring. I know our pitchers are glad they get to face other pitchers besides ours.”
“Both of those guys were fantastic. A.J. Minter, with all the energy and excitement of opening day and the great crowd we had, was in total control of the day. Give Holy Cross credit, they did a great job of fouling off a lot of pitches and took a lot of pitches from him, only allowed him to go five innings. Matt Kent on Sunday did exactly what he did in the fall, just suffocates you with strikes. Had we not made a couple errors in the first inning that cost him 10-12 pitches, he would have gone into the 8th or 9th inning. I think he ended up at 85-90 pitches through seven and was just really good.”
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