April 25, 2009

Recap | Box Score

Head Coach Steve Smith

On the OU offense:

"They got some balls in the air and they took some good swings. Some of those were fairly decent pitches but some of them weren't. They have a good aggressive offensive club. Today was a difficult day to pitch. You weren't going to make a lot of mistakes and get away with it."

On Aaron Miller:

"He was attacking with his fastball. They did the damage on him with two outs. He is throwing strikes and he is pounding the strike zone. On a day like today it is a hitters day. On the second time around they are seeing him better. The first (homerun) that he gave up to Aaron Baker was the one that I wish he hadn't thrown. He gave him a slider, something off-speed. That is what they were doing most of the damage with. He was throwing a lot of good fastballs but then the next guy hits a fastball out. I really thought that we would score some runs and we needed a good strikeout guy today, which, (Logan) Verrett is the best guy we have to strike the guys out. He just wasn't on. He didn't have it today. That is really when it got out of hand. That is the card we played and it wasn't there today."

On the Sunday starter:

"We will probably start Willie (Kempf). We have Willie and Shawn (Tolleson) both available and either one could start. I will meditate on that one some. They are both very similar so I don't know that it makes any difference to anybody which one goes first. They are both capable of getting you pretty deep into the game. They both can pitch."

On the conference race:

"You have to do a good job of not burying yourself. (The conference race) is very close and we are still playing these teams head up. If you win tomorrow you can change everything with Oklahoma by a full game and then we still have three to play with Texas. You just keep showing up and make sure that you haven't cashed it in mentally, which I know these guys won't. These guys have invested far too much-there is not really any reason for me to talk to them. They have handled themselves so well and have held themselves to such a high standard of accountability that I don't worry about them at all showing up ready to play. Some days they are going to be good and some days they are not. They are going to try and do their best for each other."

On the mindset of the team:

"It is pretty difficult not to go through an entire baseball season and not have a little down spell. What I have been preaching is that it takes a good team to win together but it takes a great team to lose together. They have to stay together right now. It takes great fans to stay behind a team when it is not easy to do so. We have a lot of great fans. We have been down this road before; it is not the first time."

LHP/DH Aaron Miller

On his outing today:

"I guess that is how baseball goes. I really needed to step up today. I made some bad pitches early on giving up a couple of homeruns. I usually just don't make those kinds of bad pitches. I left some stuff out over the middle of the plate and they did what a good hitting team does-they handled them. That is when your guys have to step up and I really just didn't step up. I made some bad pitches. I had some chances at the plate. I came up with a couple of guys on different times and I really just couldn't get it through."

On the wind:

"With the wind blowing out it is going to be a tough pitchers day any day. The couple of homeruns that I gave up I am not sure that the wind was going to affect those or not. They got a hold of those pretty well. I don't think the wind really affected my outing. I just made some bad pitches."

On the importance of avoiding the sweep:

"Getting swept is never a good thing. We have to bounce back and get one. With the way that this weekend has been going we are still in the hunt. If we come out and win tomorrow and take care of Texas and Nebraska we are still in the hunt. We just have to come out and take care of business tomorrow."

RF Adam Hornung

On the wind:

"The wind blowing out today was tough. It is usually in our favor but with that team, they are leading the league in homeruns. They got a few more balls in the air then we did today and put them on the board."

On playing from behind:

"It is definitely tough playing from behind. I thought our pitchers did a good job throwing the ball. A couple of those balls were wind-aided but a couple of them were hit well too. It is easier for their guy to come out and throw when he has a lead. They did a good job of keeping the ball down."

On his homerun:

"I got lucky and (Garrett Richards) hung me a curveball. I got it up in the wind and got it over."

On the importance of avoiding the sweep to stay in the conference race:

"It is going to be tough tomorrow to bounce back but I think we can do it. Today we got pretty bad. Last night was a much closer game. It is still a big game because we are still in the hunt. It will be good for us to come back and get a win tomorrow. If you look around the league everyone else is beating up on each other. It is going to come down to the wire."