-
If you told us, before we got on the plane, that we would win the series, I’d take it. I thought we played well.
-
I thought Ryan Prager, after the first inning, did a nice job. He didn’t have the best start out of the gate, but a sign of a good pitcher is that he found his stuff and gave us a great chance to win. I thought Tanner Jones did a nice job but had some bad luck. He couldn’t finish off a few hitters, and it was a short stint.
-
Evan Aschenbeck was Aschenbeck in both games. Justin Lamkin threw a bunch of strikes, but they made him pay for some bad pitches.
-
I thought their lefty did a good job keeping us off-balance, and it's unfortunate that we couldn’t get one more big hit. We’ll take it. This league as we’ve seen, it is crazy, and we have got to keep pressing forward.
-
There’s never panic. Guys just keep playing. It’s a good mix of professional baseball approach with college baseball energy. We just couldn’t get one more swing, so I feel good about that.
-
Braden Montgomery is human, too. Whether it be bad luck or just baseball, if we’re relying on him to drive in all the runs, we’re not going to go very far. We don’t rely on him.
-
I thought Hayden Schott had some really huge at-bats. How often do you get the lineup card, which is basically player of the game for us, going 1-for-5 with three punch-outs on Saturday? It’s situational hitting, and I thought he did great. It doesn’t taste as good when you lose the last one. That’s the only thing, but we feel good about it. It was a good plane ride home, and the guys are ready to get some rest and play.
-
We wanted to get Caden Sorrell a start against a lefty yesterday, but we just like our lineup, and we’ve been playing well. Caden’s doing great. He gets in those 3-2 counts, and you can see the depth of the counts our guys get into. He’s maturing right before our eyes and is going to be a heck of a good player here for a long time.
-
Shane Sdao, obviously, he did a really good job of getting out of the bases-loaded. He made that awesome catch, but then he settled in. He’s got his changeup going. He’s got his slider going, and he gave us life in the middle of the game against a team that’s better against right-handed pitching than they are left-handed pitching. He allowed us to get out without having to use Aschenbeck. Super proud of Shane. He can pitch in any role, so that’s really important to us.
-
We are getting close to getting Troy Wansing back. He will throw either in the game tomorrow or in a simulated game this week. Who knows how he will be when he gets back, but if he can and be serviceable as a reliever, that will take some pressure off of Shane and Evan.
-
We didn’t have any lefties. Weston Moss had been great against Auburn. The thing that he didn’t do yesterday, and he always does, was we got smoked in the free base wars. I think we walked seven guys, and you just can’t do that. He’s fine. He’s not going to be perfect all the time. He made some good pitches too, and we’ll go back to him when needed.
-
Running out and grabbing Jace LaViolette, I thought it was a reaction to the umpire, not the pitcher. We had a conversation before the game with the team after what happened at Mississippi State. Good players learn from their mistakes. Great players learn from other people’s mistakes, and the same thing for teams.
-
What happened at Mississippi State, it’s unfortunate. It’s a weird place for college baseball to be, and it’s tough on the umpires. We had a conversation and said, “If anything like that comes up, just do everything you can to stay on the bench and let us handle it as coaches.”
-
What the officials don’t understand is that everyone’s first reaction isn’t to run in there and fight. It’s to run in there and break things up. I kind of understand the rule if they leave the bench, you’re ejected, but at the same time, when we do have the resources, like in the SEC, to review the video, common sense has to prevail. I feel really bad for those kids that got thrown out of the game. It’s further evidence in the grand scheme of college athletics about the distance between the SEC and everybody else in everything, so hopefully, at some point, we’ll have our own set of rules.
-
Looks like a great weekend. Hopefully, we can get some huge crowds with a great program and great team coming in Vanderbilt.
-
I’ll call Coach Patrick Hallmark at UTSA later today just to see what the schedule looks like during the course of this week. I know they go to Memphis, but I certainly don’t want to make UTSA get on a bus to come over here unless we’re sure we can play the game. Tuesday’s not looking great. We’ll see what the rest of the week holds, but we need to play. Chris Cortez needs to pitch. We need to try and play if we can and still be ready to go for a big weekend.
-
The game’s pitching, defense, and timely hitting, that’s what separates most games, most of these SEC games. You can go back to two to three swings that either won you the game or cost you the game. We had that 8-hole hitter with two strikes and a 9-hole hitter with two strikes, and we couldn’t get them out.
-
That’s not something you really practice. The only thing you can do is make sure the hitter knows all the pressure is on the pitcher and pick your pitch. Don’t be in a hurry to hit. Just put together a great at-bat, and if you do that enough overtime, then you’ll get the hit. But the odds are still in the pitcher’s favor.
