April 4, 2010

Recap | Box Score

Head Coach Steve Smith

On today's offense:
"The park was offensive today for sure. The ball was traveling and the wind was blowing out. It's just really hard in the infield and there were a lot of base hits on the ground. It was not an easy day to pitch on a day that you need to be able to pitch. We kept running guys out there, and aside from Willie's (Kempf) first three innings that's all we had going for us today."

On getting off to a good start:
"He (Willie Kempf) was pitching well, about as well as I've seen him. We were playing well behind him. I don't know how to explain that. But when it left, it left in a big hurry. As we've talked about, we're going to go as far as our pitching takes us. Today it took us to where we are."

On the team's offensive production:
"I thought our guys played hard. It's frustrating for hitters to scrap and get runs and then we go back out and give them up. We weren't very good in the outfield today defensively. As a matter of fact, I would say that's about as bad as I've ever seen here. We had at least one big time bonehead play running the bases that really didn't cost us, but it could have. But our outfield play was poor and that's a concern."

On winning the series:
"Yes, we did (win the series). And beyond that, these guys are hurting right now. They didn't come to today's game just to show up and win two out of three. They really came to play hard and we did play hard. We just didn't pitch it enough and in this sport what happens on the mound is a lot of it."

On next week's games:
"The picnic is over in terms of having long breaks in between games. We will continue to get tested on the mound with the number of games we've got. I think the upside to that is we've got capable guys. There were some things that looked good out there today and other things that didn't. I'm just as concerned about us in the outfield right now as I am with pitching, but I think we'll get that straightened out as well."