April 27, 2008

Recap | Box Score

Baylor head coach Steve Smith:

On today's game:

"Their game on the mound started much like ours did last night. Their guy was shaky command-wise, but we got a two-out hit from Paul (Miles), and we were able to take advantage of them early in the game when their starting pitcher had trouble throwing strikes."

On the Baylor pitching:

"It was outstanding. I was really impressed with what Willie (Kempf) was able to do after getting up (pitching) yesterday. We took him out of his routine, and for him to come back out there today and give us five quality innings, that was huge. Mace (Thurman) was outstanding. They helped to relax the club. It was as relaxed a game as we've had in a long time, and it all started on the mound with those guys just throwing strikes, not hitting anybody, not putting anybody on free, and just throwing the ball over the plate."

On the Bears' offensive performance:

"Offensively we had a very good day; a surprising day with the wind blowing in. Normally when the wind blows in like that it's not conducive to a lot of hit or many runs, but we squared some balls up to today. There are a lot of guys up and down the lineup that swung the bats pretty well."

Baylor sophomore RHP Willie Kempf:

On coming back from pitching yesterday and throwing five innings today:

"I felt pretty well. I had pretty good stuff today; I had a good slider and I was locating my fastball well. I don't think I was throwing as hard as I can, but whenever you can locate, get good defense behind you, and have a breaking ball you can throw for a strike, you can be successful a lot of times; luckily today I had a couple of those things."

On coming back from losing both games yesterday:

"Yesterday was just a bad day in general. Nothing went right for us, nobody felt good about the way that the day went, and it was good to come out today and have the bats come alive. We usually struggle in conditions like this, with the wind blowing in, but we put together some great at bats today, and we had some two-out, two-strike hits that were just huge for us. Those are the kinds of things that we haven't been getting."

On Mace Thurman's performance:

"Mace was awesome. He had all three of his pitches working about as well as they can work, and he was locating them pretty well. Whenever you can come in and fill up the strike zone with three quality pitches, you're going to be successful. He did a great job today finishing a game off for us."

Baylor junior LHP Mace Thurman:

On setting a career-high with seven strikeouts:

"I was really comfortable out there. After seeing Willie (Kempf) pitch, he just went out there and threw strikes, I said to myself that I've just got to do what he had to do. He pitched such a great game that I had to back him up, and that's what I'm there for."

On building confidence for the bullpen:

"It seems like just one guy doing it, but it's really not. There are guys down there that support you and give you confidence to come out. Having a bullpen perform like that, especially going into these bigger series, gives the guys confidence; not just for me, but for all of the guys behind me."

Baylor sophomore RF Aaron Miller:

On coming back from losing the first two games of the series:

"It was really a must-win coming in with the way everything is going on in the Big 12. Everybody's beating everybody, and we need to stay in the pack. We helped ourselves out today by getting this win."

On winning the last game of the series:

"It has kind of been our story that every weekend we're one hit away from taking two out of three, but we've really just got to keep fighting because it's going to come around for us. If we keep swinging the bats, keep putting it together like we did today on the mound and at the plate, we're going to be a tough team to beat. We just have to keep working on that to be more consistent."

On getting 16 hits on a tough day to hit:

"When we're aggressive like that we're really good. We get in trouble by taking a bunch of pitches, taking a bunch of strikes and striking out a lot, but when we're aggressive we're going to be a tough team to pitch against."

On adding four more runs after scoring four in the first inning:

"That's the name of the game, especially in college baseball with the metal bats, it doesn't really matter where the wind is blowing, a four-run lead isn't really that safe. We needed to keep adding, and we did. We added four more runs after just to keep it safe."