I've gotten some grief for saying Tayler Montiel had a really good year, but he proved my point yesterday with a masterpiece out the bullpen when it looked like Tulane was about to lose a must-win game in the AAC tournament. His stuff is legit, and after a very shaky performance closing out FAU on Tuesday, he was sensational yesterday, getting a double play (with the help of an interference call) when it was absolutely needed right after he entered, retiring the AAC player of the year for the first out of the next inning and then striking out four in a row. He extended the streak to eight outs before giving up a couple of base-runners in the 9th, but unlike Tuesday, when it really felt like the Wave was in trouble, he coaxed a weak grounder to Connor Rasmussen to preserve the 10-6 victory.
It feels like Tulane does whatever it takes to win in Clearwater, and yesterday it was a bizarre power surge, with a season-high five home runs, including four that were mammoth shots. That is not explainable, but this team clearly plays with tremendous confidence at BayCare Ballpark. Plus, the defense was immaculate.
The concern is who will pitch Saturday. My guess is Blaise Wilcenski will start the morning game, with Will Clements available for quick relief and then hope and prayer after that. If Tulane loses, I would expect Trey Cehajic to start the second game. He threw only 15 pitches yesterday.
Here is what was said in the Zoom interviews after another terrific performance:
UTSA COACH PAT HALLMARK
"Tulane was really good and we were kind of mediocre to not very good."
On Tulane hitting good pitches:
"We threw bad pitches. We didn't walk them, which is our first goal, but we threw bad pitches. We threw some terrible pitches. 0-2 pitches got us in trouble again (James Agabedis' first home run was the only one on an 0-2 count). Yeah, we threw some bad pitches. We always try to not get beat by the walk. We didn't get beat by the walk, but we didn't throw enough good pitches."
On offense:
"The offense was OK. It was decent. It can be better, but it was decent."
On starter Zach Royse:
"He didn't make pitches when he needed to. He didn't pitch bad. He got ahead 0-2 and got beaten 0-2 multiple times. It keeps happening, It's frustrating. You're not going to beat good people when you throw 0-2 pitches over the plate, and Tulane's good, and we keep doing it. This is not the first game it's happened. The second half of the season it's been a little bit of an Achilles heel. I don't see adjustments being made when adjustments need to be made. We need to be better as coaches, too."
On Montiel:
"He's good. He's been doing that all year. If you look at his numbers he doesn't get hit. it's well less than a hit an inning. Nobody hits him. He's got that fastball that moves a little bit, and he hides the ball and he throws hard. I did not expect to hit him real good, but I did expect with the game tied or one run that anything is possible, obviously with our team. But the two-run home run after the solo home run hurt us a little bit. That was a bad call. We called a high fastball to a high fastball hitter. Our catches call the pitches. We're one of the few teams in the country that let the catchers call the pitches, and they do a great job with that. We just happened to make a mistake there. And it's Rob (Orloski)'s best pitch, so I know why (Andrew) Stucky called it. He called his pitcher's best pitch. I don't know that it's a mistake, but Wachs is a good high fastball hitter, and that's what the report is. But I'm more frustrated with the pitches early in the game where we get ahead of people and we throw stupid pitches right down the middle."
JAY UHLMAN
"Tremendous victory against a really well coached, tough team. Just a gritty, gutty effort by us. Fladda did a tremendous job getting us off to a really good start. We had a baton pass there, went for it with Cehajic and sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't, and then we passed the ball on to Tayler and what a gutty performance by him. He emptied his tank. And then offensively we just kept pressure on them with some two-out RBIs and some big homers and a lot of individual performances, great defense. It was a really complete effort by our club to beat a really good 40-plus win UTSA team. I have tremendous respect for how they go about it. They are a tough team."
On if home runs surprised him:
"Not that it surprises you, but when you have far more doubles than you do homers. In years past we had 98 homers and 87 homers or something like that. That was always part of the play. But in Clearwater when the prevailing wind is that way, if you just square up a ball and gets some backspin on it, it's got a chance to go. I'm not surprised, but it certainly has not been the cowbell of our offense."
On Agabedis hitting two homers:
"They were huge, and he's done it here before. His freshman year he smashed a big homer. He had one off of (former ECU star pitcher Tre) Yesavage at our place. His homers have been few and far between, but they've been really important ones. The game rewards guys like him. He works his butt off. He's patient. He waits his turn. He's a great teammate. The game loves players like him, so I'm not surprised by his success. It's the kid that he is and the person that he is. It's awesome that he gets rewarded that way, and he deserves that."
On getting leadoff hitter out in eight of nine innings (gave up three runs the one time he got on):
"Yeah, it was huge. We got the double play to end it with (Mason) Lytle sitting on deck. That was a ginormous part of the game for us to get out of that and get off the field tied with that double play with him on deck. Just huge. That's one of the criteria we always talk about--six or more leadoff guys off base--and we did that. When you keep a team like that that is one of the top offenses in the country, hat's off to our pitching and our defense. Those guys did a tremendous job."
On why Tulane keeps playing well in Clearwater:
"I would like to think of that as a body of work. It doesn't always work out the way we wanted it work out in terms of wins, but we teach through the wins, we teach through the losses, we teach through the tough times. Our guys believe. We're like families. We have arguments and fights and disagreements. I don't give everybody what they want all the time and that's a hard pill to swallow, but the body of work as you go through a season, the trust that even in times when they don't get what they want, that we're doing everything we can the right way is really important. We're not running our guys out there for 120 pitches every single game, the whole 14 weeks of the season. Case in point, Lombardi yesterday was fresh and ready to go. We didn't put our self interests and our egos in front of our players' needs. It's never about us. It's always about our players, and again, we don't always get what we want in terms of the volume of wins, but the body of work with how we do it internally that nobody else can see, how we go about our business allows us to put ourselves in position here. Our guys are just ready to play. They feel good about being here."
On what said before the game:
"It wasn't some super rah rah speech. It was just a lot of truisms and things I wanted to see them do. Nothing super special. It's always the players that go out and do those things."
It feels like Tulane does whatever it takes to win in Clearwater, and yesterday it was a bizarre power surge, with a season-high five home runs, including four that were mammoth shots. That is not explainable, but this team clearly plays with tremendous confidence at BayCare Ballpark. Plus, the defense was immaculate.
The concern is who will pitch Saturday. My guess is Blaise Wilcenski will start the morning game, with Will Clements available for quick relief and then hope and prayer after that. If Tulane loses, I would expect Trey Cehajic to start the second game. He threw only 15 pitches yesterday.
Here is what was said in the Zoom interviews after another terrific performance:
UTSA COACH PAT HALLMARK
"Tulane was really good and we were kind of mediocre to not very good."
On Tulane hitting good pitches:
"We threw bad pitches. We didn't walk them, which is our first goal, but we threw bad pitches. We threw some terrible pitches. 0-2 pitches got us in trouble again (James Agabedis' first home run was the only one on an 0-2 count). Yeah, we threw some bad pitches. We always try to not get beat by the walk. We didn't get beat by the walk, but we didn't throw enough good pitches."
On offense:
"The offense was OK. It was decent. It can be better, but it was decent."
On starter Zach Royse:
"He didn't make pitches when he needed to. He didn't pitch bad. He got ahead 0-2 and got beaten 0-2 multiple times. It keeps happening, It's frustrating. You're not going to beat good people when you throw 0-2 pitches over the plate, and Tulane's good, and we keep doing it. This is not the first game it's happened. The second half of the season it's been a little bit of an Achilles heel. I don't see adjustments being made when adjustments need to be made. We need to be better as coaches, too."
On Montiel:
"He's good. He's been doing that all year. If you look at his numbers he doesn't get hit. it's well less than a hit an inning. Nobody hits him. He's got that fastball that moves a little bit, and he hides the ball and he throws hard. I did not expect to hit him real good, but I did expect with the game tied or one run that anything is possible, obviously with our team. But the two-run home run after the solo home run hurt us a little bit. That was a bad call. We called a high fastball to a high fastball hitter. Our catches call the pitches. We're one of the few teams in the country that let the catchers call the pitches, and they do a great job with that. We just happened to make a mistake there. And it's Rob (Orloski)'s best pitch, so I know why (Andrew) Stucky called it. He called his pitcher's best pitch. I don't know that it's a mistake, but Wachs is a good high fastball hitter, and that's what the report is. But I'm more frustrated with the pitches early in the game where we get ahead of people and we throw stupid pitches right down the middle."
JAY UHLMAN
"Tremendous victory against a really well coached, tough team. Just a gritty, gutty effort by us. Fladda did a tremendous job getting us off to a really good start. We had a baton pass there, went for it with Cehajic and sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't, and then we passed the ball on to Tayler and what a gutty performance by him. He emptied his tank. And then offensively we just kept pressure on them with some two-out RBIs and some big homers and a lot of individual performances, great defense. It was a really complete effort by our club to beat a really good 40-plus win UTSA team. I have tremendous respect for how they go about it. They are a tough team."
On if home runs surprised him:
"Not that it surprises you, but when you have far more doubles than you do homers. In years past we had 98 homers and 87 homers or something like that. That was always part of the play. But in Clearwater when the prevailing wind is that way, if you just square up a ball and gets some backspin on it, it's got a chance to go. I'm not surprised, but it certainly has not been the cowbell of our offense."
On Agabedis hitting two homers:
"They were huge, and he's done it here before. His freshman year he smashed a big homer. He had one off of (former ECU star pitcher Tre) Yesavage at our place. His homers have been few and far between, but they've been really important ones. The game rewards guys like him. He works his butt off. He's patient. He waits his turn. He's a great teammate. The game loves players like him, so I'm not surprised by his success. It's the kid that he is and the person that he is. It's awesome that he gets rewarded that way, and he deserves that."
On getting leadoff hitter out in eight of nine innings (gave up three runs the one time he got on):
"Yeah, it was huge. We got the double play to end it with (Mason) Lytle sitting on deck. That was a ginormous part of the game for us to get out of that and get off the field tied with that double play with him on deck. Just huge. That's one of the criteria we always talk about--six or more leadoff guys off base--and we did that. When you keep a team like that that is one of the top offenses in the country, hat's off to our pitching and our defense. Those guys did a tremendous job."
On why Tulane keeps playing well in Clearwater:
"I would like to think of that as a body of work. It doesn't always work out the way we wanted it work out in terms of wins, but we teach through the wins, we teach through the losses, we teach through the tough times. Our guys believe. We're like families. We have arguments and fights and disagreements. I don't give everybody what they want all the time and that's a hard pill to swallow, but the body of work as you go through a season, the trust that even in times when they don't get what they want, that we're doing everything we can the right way is really important. We're not running our guys out there for 120 pitches every single game, the whole 14 weeks of the season. Case in point, Lombardi yesterday was fresh and ready to go. We didn't put our self interests and our egos in front of our players' needs. It's never about us. It's always about our players, and again, we don't always get what we want in terms of the volume of wins, but the body of work with how we do it internally that nobody else can see, how we go about our business allows us to put ourselves in position here. Our guys are just ready to play. They feel good about being here."
On what said before the game:
"It wasn't some super rah rah speech. It was just a lot of truisms and things I wanted to see them do. Nothing super special. It's always the players that go out and do those things."