Braden Olthoff and Travis Jewett did a Zoom call after Olthoff limited the Bulldogs to six hits and two runs in another masterful eight-inning performance. His ERA since arriving at Tulane last year is 0.65, and this was by far the best hitting team he faced in his six starts. After giving a double to the wall on his first pitch, leading to the second earned run he has allowed at Tulane on a single, he retired 12 in a row while keeping the Bulldogs off balance and frustrated enough that he was checked for using an illegal substance in the fifth inning. Later, the Mississippi State coach said they thought something must be going on but nothing was, that Olthoff was just jamming it up their tails.
This is one special player, and Tulane backed him up with three runs in the third and three runs in the sixth, all on two-strike counts and the first three coming with two outs.
OLTHOFF
On rebounding from double on first pitch:
"I felt great tonight. We knew they could hit. I think early I was just trying to get all my off speed established. The first pitch of the game I went fastball and he jumped all over it, and then they got a run across, but I was never worried. The run support was great tonight. It felt really good going out there with the lead most of the game and not just one or two runs. It was three or four the whole night (actually Tulane went ahead 3-1 in the third and 6-1 in the sixth). It is definitely easy to pitch when we've got guys who are putting up runs. I could just attack the zone."
On having total command:
"I felt good. They loaded the lineup with seven lefties and two righties. The changeup was really big tonight and then the curveball to keep them off balance and then a few sliders. I was throwing a lot of curveballs and changeups, then they would get off the fastballs and I was able to sneak the fastball by. That's a big part of my game, just attacking the zone and keeping them off balance. That's what I did tonight."
On having glove checked for illegal substance:
"That's never happened to me. I've never been one to use pine tar or any other substances, so an umpire came out there and was like, we've got to check your glove for this. I loved it. That fired me up even more. It fired up our dugout. I'm a competitor, so I took that as a compliment. Obviously they thought I was cheating, so that just fired me up even more and I took that energy the rest of the way."
On watching Gillies close it out:
"It's always a great feeling when Keagan goes in there. You know he's going to be chucking it hard. They got a few guys on, but there was never a worry. We knew he was going to get the job done, and it's nice to have a great closer coming in behind you."
On all seven Tulane runs coming on two-strike pitches:
"They've got some pretty good arms. Even their worst arm is going to be a great arm. Collin Burns got the two-run home run and then from there it was just a lot of mature hitting. We stayed aggressive in the zone, got a lot of walks. It's just putting the ball in play. I know Simon (Baumgardt) just kind of blooped that one over second and got another two runs. It was really nice to see the offense rolling tonight, especially against as good a pitching as they have and a good team they have."
JEWETT
On Olthoff being Olthoff:
"What do you say, right? The thing I'm most proud about him for tonight is you know what he can do, but to get in this type of environment and it's a big moment, and for them to come out punching in the first and jump on the board early, maybe a less mentally tough kid that doesn't prepare as well as he does reacts differently. He felt good that that's just one and I'm just going to maintain these guys and keep my team in it. That's what he did, and all of a sudden he got a chance to get into a rhythm. This is a very good offensive team, and for him to be able to mix his pitches and keep them off the fastball and throw those and set up his changeups and his breaking balls was unbelievable. He certainly handled some adversity in the first inning. The crowd was on him for his hair and all those things. A really big moment, too, was when they were trying to find an illegal substance on his body. He's not that type of kid obviously, but more than anything it was a ploy. When you get those ploys like that in the middle of a game, you gotta win the moment, and he was able to win that moment. That was a big thing, and (Collin) Burnsy landed on that ball (a two-run, go-ahead homer in the third down the left field line) and that kind of put us out in front and gave everybody a chance to take a deep breath and Braden just kept coming at them."
"I thought Frankie Niemann was unbelievable. It's so good to have his old age and presence in there with some of those two strikes, using the back side of the field, helped us win."
On Niemann's injury that kept him out the first weekend:
"He had a shoulder that we were nursing a little bit and like I told you earlier, we probably could have played him right out of the gate, but we were trying to have a little bit of forward vision. He convinced me and the training staff that he was fine and he could do everything from swinging the bat to diving into bases and all those kind of things. With his insertion over the last few games, I think you can see what he does for our offense."
On all seven RBIs coming on two-strike pitches:
"Two outs, we have a saying there's a lot of inning left because we are going to try to stay momentary and win the pitches. We just have to find a way to find first base, and our guys did that well. There was a span in there where with those two-out, two-strike things, we took their starter (Christian MacLeod), who's a Major League type pitcher, we were able to extend him from the 40s to the 70s (pitch count) before you knew it. That was a big deal we were able to get him out of the game. They used quite a few arms tonight (seven), so hopefully that will be helpful for us going forward."
On if he would label this a statement win:
'Yeah, I would. I don't think I'm going to shy away form that. Any time you can pack up your field at Turchin Stadium for the first time and go on the road, I do want to give coach (Chris) Lemonis and his staff and their team a lot of credit. They are scary good. I don't think it's a statement that I'm saying I'm making to the world or anything like that, but it's a statement for our kids about how they feel and what they think they are capable of. It wasn't hey, let's come in here and see if we can slay the lion or anything like that. We needed to come in here believing that we were good enough to win. The kids played with confidence, and hopefully just like we used those two losses against Lafayette, we can use two wins like this (also beating UNO on Tuesday) the same way. It's more a statement internally than externally."
On Olthoff pitching for the first time without his personal catcher, Haydan Hastings (they went with normal starter Luis Aviles):
"Luis really caught well. He was on top of it all night long, but we are in not a bind, because binds aren't good, but we have Bennett Lee with a hamstring (injury) the other night and he's down. When you have that situation and a left-handed pitcher starting, I don't want to DH Luis because if something were to happen to Haydan where we needed to make a switch on the box or on the bases or something like that, then we'd have to insert our DH into the catcher slot and then your pitcher would need to hit, and I don't really like that because they don't practice hitting. That's why we did it, and with MacLeod going, I thought it was better to have an Aviles-Niemann combination right-handed hitting than anything. We'll get Haydan in there tomorrow. I was just really proud of the way Luis caught and the way Olthoff didn't need the crutch or the cane to pitch well, so that will be good for us going forward."
On Burns reaching new level:
"100 percent. This kid's a ball player now. He has played well from the ball being pointed in play this fall until now. He's catching the ground ball well, he's making all the throws from all different kinds of angles and pound for pound he's the strongest kid on our team, so he can impact some balls and do some good things for us. So, yeah, he certainly has made that nice move in his career. I'm just real proud of the ascend that he's on."
On two-run homer being a giant blow to get team started:
"Oh, no question. To land it off of that pitcher, left on left, to be able to stay over the ball and hit it over the fence, that was the key to getting us to take a deep breath and go on from there."
This is one special player, and Tulane backed him up with three runs in the third and three runs in the sixth, all on two-strike counts and the first three coming with two outs.
OLTHOFF
On rebounding from double on first pitch:
"I felt great tonight. We knew they could hit. I think early I was just trying to get all my off speed established. The first pitch of the game I went fastball and he jumped all over it, and then they got a run across, but I was never worried. The run support was great tonight. It felt really good going out there with the lead most of the game and not just one or two runs. It was three or four the whole night (actually Tulane went ahead 3-1 in the third and 6-1 in the sixth). It is definitely easy to pitch when we've got guys who are putting up runs. I could just attack the zone."
On having total command:
"I felt good. They loaded the lineup with seven lefties and two righties. The changeup was really big tonight and then the curveball to keep them off balance and then a few sliders. I was throwing a lot of curveballs and changeups, then they would get off the fastballs and I was able to sneak the fastball by. That's a big part of my game, just attacking the zone and keeping them off balance. That's what I did tonight."
On having glove checked for illegal substance:
"That's never happened to me. I've never been one to use pine tar or any other substances, so an umpire came out there and was like, we've got to check your glove for this. I loved it. That fired me up even more. It fired up our dugout. I'm a competitor, so I took that as a compliment. Obviously they thought I was cheating, so that just fired me up even more and I took that energy the rest of the way."
On watching Gillies close it out:
"It's always a great feeling when Keagan goes in there. You know he's going to be chucking it hard. They got a few guys on, but there was never a worry. We knew he was going to get the job done, and it's nice to have a great closer coming in behind you."
On all seven Tulane runs coming on two-strike pitches:
"They've got some pretty good arms. Even their worst arm is going to be a great arm. Collin Burns got the two-run home run and then from there it was just a lot of mature hitting. We stayed aggressive in the zone, got a lot of walks. It's just putting the ball in play. I know Simon (Baumgardt) just kind of blooped that one over second and got another two runs. It was really nice to see the offense rolling tonight, especially against as good a pitching as they have and a good team they have."
JEWETT
On Olthoff being Olthoff:
"What do you say, right? The thing I'm most proud about him for tonight is you know what he can do, but to get in this type of environment and it's a big moment, and for them to come out punching in the first and jump on the board early, maybe a less mentally tough kid that doesn't prepare as well as he does reacts differently. He felt good that that's just one and I'm just going to maintain these guys and keep my team in it. That's what he did, and all of a sudden he got a chance to get into a rhythm. This is a very good offensive team, and for him to be able to mix his pitches and keep them off the fastball and throw those and set up his changeups and his breaking balls was unbelievable. He certainly handled some adversity in the first inning. The crowd was on him for his hair and all those things. A really big moment, too, was when they were trying to find an illegal substance on his body. He's not that type of kid obviously, but more than anything it was a ploy. When you get those ploys like that in the middle of a game, you gotta win the moment, and he was able to win that moment. That was a big thing, and (Collin) Burnsy landed on that ball (a two-run, go-ahead homer in the third down the left field line) and that kind of put us out in front and gave everybody a chance to take a deep breath and Braden just kept coming at them."
"I thought Frankie Niemann was unbelievable. It's so good to have his old age and presence in there with some of those two strikes, using the back side of the field, helped us win."
On Niemann's injury that kept him out the first weekend:
"He had a shoulder that we were nursing a little bit and like I told you earlier, we probably could have played him right out of the gate, but we were trying to have a little bit of forward vision. He convinced me and the training staff that he was fine and he could do everything from swinging the bat to diving into bases and all those kind of things. With his insertion over the last few games, I think you can see what he does for our offense."
On all seven RBIs coming on two-strike pitches:
"Two outs, we have a saying there's a lot of inning left because we are going to try to stay momentary and win the pitches. We just have to find a way to find first base, and our guys did that well. There was a span in there where with those two-out, two-strike things, we took their starter (Christian MacLeod), who's a Major League type pitcher, we were able to extend him from the 40s to the 70s (pitch count) before you knew it. That was a big deal we were able to get him out of the game. They used quite a few arms tonight (seven), so hopefully that will be helpful for us going forward."
On if he would label this a statement win:
'Yeah, I would. I don't think I'm going to shy away form that. Any time you can pack up your field at Turchin Stadium for the first time and go on the road, I do want to give coach (Chris) Lemonis and his staff and their team a lot of credit. They are scary good. I don't think it's a statement that I'm saying I'm making to the world or anything like that, but it's a statement for our kids about how they feel and what they think they are capable of. It wasn't hey, let's come in here and see if we can slay the lion or anything like that. We needed to come in here believing that we were good enough to win. The kids played with confidence, and hopefully just like we used those two losses against Lafayette, we can use two wins like this (also beating UNO on Tuesday) the same way. It's more a statement internally than externally."
On Olthoff pitching for the first time without his personal catcher, Haydan Hastings (they went with normal starter Luis Aviles):
"Luis really caught well. He was on top of it all night long, but we are in not a bind, because binds aren't good, but we have Bennett Lee with a hamstring (injury) the other night and he's down. When you have that situation and a left-handed pitcher starting, I don't want to DH Luis because if something were to happen to Haydan where we needed to make a switch on the box or on the bases or something like that, then we'd have to insert our DH into the catcher slot and then your pitcher would need to hit, and I don't really like that because they don't practice hitting. That's why we did it, and with MacLeod going, I thought it was better to have an Aviles-Niemann combination right-handed hitting than anything. We'll get Haydan in there tomorrow. I was just really proud of the way Luis caught and the way Olthoff didn't need the crutch or the cane to pitch well, so that will be good for us going forward."
On Burns reaching new level:
"100 percent. This kid's a ball player now. He has played well from the ball being pointed in play this fall until now. He's catching the ground ball well, he's making all the throws from all different kinds of angles and pound for pound he's the strongest kid on our team, so he can impact some balls and do some good things for us. So, yeah, he certainly has made that nice move in his career. I'm just real proud of the ascend that he's on."
On two-run homer being a giant blow to get team started:
"Oh, no question. To land it off of that pitcher, left on left, to be able to stay over the ball and hit it over the fence, that was the key to getting us to take a deep breath and go on from there."