Feb. 18, 2011
Recap | Box Score
Head Coach Steve Smith
On performance from Logan Verrett:
"Logan has not been throwing well. He is working on it and he will get better, but he just isn't clicking right now. When he is good he has fastball command, he has a good hard slider and tonight he didn't have either one of those things."
On the offensive production of Oral Roberts:
"Well they don't get the hits without the walks. They got three runs that reached base via walk and one scored on a ball to the backstop. If they would have got a hit they would have scored him, so that's what is really kind of telling. Sometimes, in the past, a guy could pitch well but you honestly couldn't tell. When a team puts seven runs on the board, gets 11 hits, does what they did tonight, you have got to give them credit, but you pitched poorly. You won't have that happen if you are pitching well."
On the pitching:
"The pitchers and catchers are being asked to do a lot right now. They are not getting a whole lot of help from me. There were no pitches called from the dugout tonight. There is a lot of talk, a lot of conversation in between innings, and there have been a lot of conversations leading up to games, but the guys are going to have to learn how to pitch. That was a part of it tonight but not all of it. Mostly tonight it was simply executing the pitch and just getting it into the right spot."
Junior RHP Logan Verrett On his performance:
"I threw Tuesday and everything was just spot on. We changed just one little thing mechanically and everything was working great. Today, it was the first game of the year and you feel like you have to go out there and have a great outing and feel like you have to set the bar high for everyone else. I didn't do that. I was a little jittery, a little nervous ... but I wasn't the same as I was on Tuesday."
On the troubles on the mound:
"We called a bunch of fastballs (on the inside corner) and that is on me. I wasn't extremely comfortable throwing that many fastballs against these hitters, and I ended up leaving them out over the plate and a little up and you saw what they did with them. They are a good hitting club and I don't take any credit away from them because they still have to hit it right. The fastball wasn't working and neither was the slider. I would just say the lack of being able to command the fastball put me into the situations I found myself in today."
Senior DH Dan Evatt On the new bats:
"We have been using the bats all spring so we have kind of gotten used to them. It is a change because they act like wood bats and are maybe even a little bit lighter, but it's just something we have to adjust to, and it is also something that all the other teams are going to have to adjust to."
On his two-run double in the eighth inning:
"I got a good pitch, got a pretty good swing on it and made some good contact. We didn't get those (additional) runs in, but that is just baseball. Sometimes you are going to be clutch and sometimes things are not going to go your way. We just have to learn and shake it off and come back tomorrow."
