March 6, 2009

Recap | Box Score

Freshman Dan Evatt

On tonight's offensive performance:

"It was awesome to put up 14 runs on a team like this. Everybody swung the bat well. I thought everybody's approach was really good. Just a great team effort offensively. Top to bottom, I think everybody had a pretty good night. The difference between this game and other games is we were stringing hits together and putting up eight runs in an inning, getting them all at one time versus sprinkling them in there. That's how we got that many runs, stringing them together."

On coming back strong after sitting out last game:

"It definitely gives me confidence. It gives me a chance to sit on the bench for one came, kind of rest a little bit, get prepared for the next game. You just got to look at it as a positive, really."

On the hits falling tonight:

"Maybe the baseball gods helped us out a little bit. They are not always going to fall. You may square one up right at somebody and then sometimes a little blooper will fall in. It always works out. It worked out tonight."

On playing No. 5 UC Irvine tomorrow:

"They are a good team, but we are a good team, too. It is going to be a battle. Having a good night offensively, tonight our pitchers did well, too; but, that does give us confidence going into the next game for sure."

On not playing a one run game:

"It is starting to feel a little weird. We will take it."

Baylor head coach Steve Smith

On his team's performance:

"It is easy to talk about offense on a night when you score as many runs as we did. I thought the key to this game is really how we pitched. We did get some timely hits. They gave us a lot of bases, in terms of walks and balks. We got a lot of free bases. I thought the only time that we didn't have too good of an at-bat: we got second and third and the infield in and Dan (Evatt) at the plate and (Aaron) Miller behind him. We don't get anything out of that, but we end up coming back the next inning and getting a bunch of runs. I thought our pitching is key. To have a game where the wind is blowing out like it is and you only walk them one time. We hit them a few, but we only walked them once and our defense was not that good behind them. To only give up four runs total is a pretty good night on the mound."

On all of his starting pitchers going five or more innings this season:

"I know it is significant, I don't know how unusual it is or how surprised I am. I mean we ought to given the starters we have. We probably won't go the whole year like that, because somebody is going to have a bad game every now and again. Those guys are pretty capable of doing that.

On Craig Fritsch's performance tonight:

"I thought Craig tonight, he had some low-back stuff going on from the get go, but I thought he pitched well and it really wasn't affecting him. Probably the eight run inning, sitting over here as long as he did. I hemmed and hawed about throwing Willie (Kempf) in a game like this, but I wanted to give him a chance to pitch where we would not be tempted to go get him if he walked a couple of guys. I wanted him to start with a clean inning, so I was going to let Craig go one more and then go get him. Craig had sat over here too long and I should have just let Willie start that inning."

On Fritsch working out of early jams:

"Hopefully that is as much to do with how we pitch, and not as much to do with the fact that is early in the year and the hitters might not be on top of their game, because you are only going to dodge that bullet so many times. He did good tonight. I thought his breaking ball was better, got some strikeouts with it. There are some things I would like to see him be better at, but I am probably going to be saying that after the last game of the year. I think that one of the things about Craig, there is so much upside in him that he can be so good, that you want it for him now. It is just going to take time, it is going to take experience and most of what he needs to learn the game is going to have to teach him. He is going to have to get some experience to learn it. That is why I think we will still be saying it after the last game of the season."

On Aaron Miller's success in the QTI classic:

"I don't remember last year. I don't remember it at all. I can't tell you who was in the tournament."

On playing UC Irvine tomorrow:

"Good, good club. They are playing well. They swung it really well today. I just like the way they play the game. They are hard-nosed. They know how to play. Just some things that came up in the game today that you don't really coach: guys not leaving bases uncovered and being in right places when unusual things happen. Those are just kids that have played a lot of baseball, been around the game a lot, seen a lot of baseball. I think we learn a lot from playing those types of teams."

On Brooks Pinckard:

"He is as good of speed as we have had in a long time. He is learning some things, in terms of how to steal bases and counts and stuff like that. He can really go. He is a pretty effective bunter, but he is getting better. He has improved so much. I wanted to pitch him. I opted to not pitch him, so I could get (Kenton) Gedwed an at-bat. He doesn't do anything that is really pretty. It is all ugly, but he is a special athlete."

On not sweating this one out:

"I haven't been sweating."