Travis Jewett was very open about Tulane's problems, or more specifically, the inability to get the ball over the plate.
It was kind of the same story with guys not being able to get the ball over the plate. You had to use five pitchers in the eighth inning and could not get the third out.
"The thing is, I want to start with something good here. That's a good enough offensive performance to come out of here with a W. We knew they weren't going to fold. We had to respond, and we've shown the ability to do that now. That's a positive. It's going to help us going forward. I truly believe that.
"People might point at the fly ball to Spoon and the three-run lead in the eighth, but as I'm looking at my chart, it's an out and then another out (right after Witherspoon's two-base error) and it's all two outs. It's the freebies again. It's very frustrating. It is. I don't really have to say too much about it. It's the elephant in the room now. I'm just trying to keep pushing buttons. We have to try to figure out maybe something from a routine standpoint in the bullpens. Elite defense is the ability to move the ball from player to player with efficiency. Well, certainly pitching is part of defense, and him grabbing the ball and throwing it to the catcher efficiently, that would be good defense. That's not happening right now. I think we need to work on our aiming, our ability to locate and do some things like that.
"I tell the kids all the time, if you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting, and right now I don't like the taste of it and I know they don't either. And everybody's frustrated, but we have to keep coming. There's just nothing else we can do. I'm trying to remain positive because hopefully they're looking at me as the leader and saying he's remaining consistent and he's urging our successes. We're just going to have to figure it out somehow, some way before this thing gets too far out of hand."
What happened to Solesky? That was a different issue. It wasn't getting the ball over the plate. He was cruising with seven straight outs and then suddenly he couldn't get anyone out, and they were pretty much all hard hits.
"I wish I had the answer. He looks like he's probably going to run us into the seventh, then all of a sudden, I don't know if he was missing his pitches over the big part of the plate. I haven't seen the video yet, but I'll go back and watch it. It's just got away from him, so what I needed to do was get somebody else in there. I brought Ben (White) in in a tough situation, but I was thinking he was going to throw strikes and give us a chance to keep it there. He had that one (rough) inning but he settled down a little bit and gave us a chance. It's disappointing."
Everybody had a hit except for Witherspoon, and he walked twice. How hard is it to stomach a loss when you have that kind of production up and down the lineup?
"Like I said, anytime you hold somebody to seven hits and get 12 runs yourself, that should be a win, but sometimes this game doesn't always treat your fairly. It's kind of a cruel game at times. Right now we're getting punched all over the body and it's starting to get on the jaw. We just have to stay on our feet. We have to. We just have to stay on our feet. I told the kids today, we were 6-6 coming into tonight. Easily we could be 9-3, but if we weren't good enough, we could easily be 3-9, too. So there are some positives to some of those wins along the way against a tough schedule. I'm going to try to keep them motivated. I'm going to try to keep them believing because if we jump ship, that's not going to do us any good. It's a long season ahead. The league (schedule) isn't even close to approaching. We just have to figure this thing out here in the next couple of weeks and get going.
"Playing the five-game weeks at this point, not that they're bad, but we don't have any training opportunities, and we've got to have pitchers on call. They could touch the ball and do things like that, but we've got to have them ready. It is what is is. It's college baseball. You try to jam 56 games in there. We've got three more this week and two more next week and then three on the backside of that, so it's not going to get any different. Like I told you earlier, if we want different, which we do, then we're going to have to do something different."
Did you emphasize the positives in your post-game talk with the players?
"No question. The kids all know what happened in the game. They were here watching. For me to really try to say anything other than the truth, they know. What I wanted to tell them was that last inning, the balloon could be popped no problem. We got the first two guys out, and then I told (Jonathon) Artigues afterward, what a huge at-bat (he walked on a full count) because you're down 2 and you fight and you battle and you spoil some pitches and the next thing you know, you draw a walk, and that gets the best player on our team up at the plate with the tying run at the plate, so that was good, and then Spoon didn't get a hit tonight, but he's taking his walks. That's a sign of a great hitter--a guy that can hit for a high average, has power in his bat but will stand up there and let you walk him. And he did just that.
"We had guys on first and second with two outs and Ty Johnson's up at the plate. They are basically giving us the steal so we get them moving, and if that ball (Johnson singled) is just a little bit to the right of that gap, two guys are moving and we've got a chance to tie it (Grant Mathews flied to center with Witherspoon on third representing the tying run), so it's close. And geez, how many balls have we hit hard that don't hit the outfield grass. It's been happening to us quite a bit. I'm not saying we're snake-bitten, but I don't want the kids to lose the faith in their swings. Those balls will fall. I thought Grant's swing there at the end, it's a ball right on the barrel, but he got it up. The night wasn't really in our favor to hit the balls in the air (no wind), but I thought he hit it well."
How important will it be for Kaleb Roper to set the right tone on Friday? You didn't like what you saw from him last Friday, but that was uncharacteristic.
"Very uncharacteristic. I wish I could turn the clock forward to Friday right now because one, I want to get out here with the kids. I was thinking about taking tomorrow off, but I told them no way, not because I'm going to do anything crazy or stupid, but I want to be together. I just want to be out here together because we've got to stay connected in this thing. If we fracture, it could go fast, but that's not going to happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I don't know if I can coach, but I'm not going to let these guys move apart from each other. We'll just get together quickly tomorrow and move around a little bit. I'm super-excited to see (Roper) respond. Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it. He was just a little bit not himself (last Friday), and I think he learned from it, and I'm excited to see him go out and have a good outing against a good team."
Massey faced one batter in the eighth. Will he start Saturday?
"He will still start on Saturday. Yes. We'll keep our same rotation. It was his bullpen night. I talked to him this morning, and he was a good teammate. He was willing to maybe take his bullpen and take it the mound. I didn't take him out because he walked a guy in front of him. I took him out because the splits say so. The hitter was hitting a hundred points higher against left-handers than he was right- handers. It was just a complete statistical analysis of splits. I just told him it wasn't because I didn't think he could get him out. It's just the book said to do it. He'll be rocked and loaded to go. He didn't throw too many pitches, so he should be good to go."
It was kind of the same story with guys not being able to get the ball over the plate. You had to use five pitchers in the eighth inning and could not get the third out.
"The thing is, I want to start with something good here. That's a good enough offensive performance to come out of here with a W. We knew they weren't going to fold. We had to respond, and we've shown the ability to do that now. That's a positive. It's going to help us going forward. I truly believe that.
"People might point at the fly ball to Spoon and the three-run lead in the eighth, but as I'm looking at my chart, it's an out and then another out (right after Witherspoon's two-base error) and it's all two outs. It's the freebies again. It's very frustrating. It is. I don't really have to say too much about it. It's the elephant in the room now. I'm just trying to keep pushing buttons. We have to try to figure out maybe something from a routine standpoint in the bullpens. Elite defense is the ability to move the ball from player to player with efficiency. Well, certainly pitching is part of defense, and him grabbing the ball and throwing it to the catcher efficiently, that would be good defense. That's not happening right now. I think we need to work on our aiming, our ability to locate and do some things like that.
"I tell the kids all the time, if you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting, and right now I don't like the taste of it and I know they don't either. And everybody's frustrated, but we have to keep coming. There's just nothing else we can do. I'm trying to remain positive because hopefully they're looking at me as the leader and saying he's remaining consistent and he's urging our successes. We're just going to have to figure it out somehow, some way before this thing gets too far out of hand."
What happened to Solesky? That was a different issue. It wasn't getting the ball over the plate. He was cruising with seven straight outs and then suddenly he couldn't get anyone out, and they were pretty much all hard hits.
"I wish I had the answer. He looks like he's probably going to run us into the seventh, then all of a sudden, I don't know if he was missing his pitches over the big part of the plate. I haven't seen the video yet, but I'll go back and watch it. It's just got away from him, so what I needed to do was get somebody else in there. I brought Ben (White) in in a tough situation, but I was thinking he was going to throw strikes and give us a chance to keep it there. He had that one (rough) inning but he settled down a little bit and gave us a chance. It's disappointing."
Everybody had a hit except for Witherspoon, and he walked twice. How hard is it to stomach a loss when you have that kind of production up and down the lineup?
"Like I said, anytime you hold somebody to seven hits and get 12 runs yourself, that should be a win, but sometimes this game doesn't always treat your fairly. It's kind of a cruel game at times. Right now we're getting punched all over the body and it's starting to get on the jaw. We just have to stay on our feet. We have to. We just have to stay on our feet. I told the kids today, we were 6-6 coming into tonight. Easily we could be 9-3, but if we weren't good enough, we could easily be 3-9, too. So there are some positives to some of those wins along the way against a tough schedule. I'm going to try to keep them motivated. I'm going to try to keep them believing because if we jump ship, that's not going to do us any good. It's a long season ahead. The league (schedule) isn't even close to approaching. We just have to figure this thing out here in the next couple of weeks and get going.
"Playing the five-game weeks at this point, not that they're bad, but we don't have any training opportunities, and we've got to have pitchers on call. They could touch the ball and do things like that, but we've got to have them ready. It is what is is. It's college baseball. You try to jam 56 games in there. We've got three more this week and two more next week and then three on the backside of that, so it's not going to get any different. Like I told you earlier, if we want different, which we do, then we're going to have to do something different."
Did you emphasize the positives in your post-game talk with the players?
"No question. The kids all know what happened in the game. They were here watching. For me to really try to say anything other than the truth, they know. What I wanted to tell them was that last inning, the balloon could be popped no problem. We got the first two guys out, and then I told (Jonathon) Artigues afterward, what a huge at-bat (he walked on a full count) because you're down 2 and you fight and you battle and you spoil some pitches and the next thing you know, you draw a walk, and that gets the best player on our team up at the plate with the tying run at the plate, so that was good, and then Spoon didn't get a hit tonight, but he's taking his walks. That's a sign of a great hitter--a guy that can hit for a high average, has power in his bat but will stand up there and let you walk him. And he did just that.
"We had guys on first and second with two outs and Ty Johnson's up at the plate. They are basically giving us the steal so we get them moving, and if that ball (Johnson singled) is just a little bit to the right of that gap, two guys are moving and we've got a chance to tie it (Grant Mathews flied to center with Witherspoon on third representing the tying run), so it's close. And geez, how many balls have we hit hard that don't hit the outfield grass. It's been happening to us quite a bit. I'm not saying we're snake-bitten, but I don't want the kids to lose the faith in their swings. Those balls will fall. I thought Grant's swing there at the end, it's a ball right on the barrel, but he got it up. The night wasn't really in our favor to hit the balls in the air (no wind), but I thought he hit it well."
How important will it be for Kaleb Roper to set the right tone on Friday? You didn't like what you saw from him last Friday, but that was uncharacteristic.
"Very uncharacteristic. I wish I could turn the clock forward to Friday right now because one, I want to get out here with the kids. I was thinking about taking tomorrow off, but I told them no way, not because I'm going to do anything crazy or stupid, but I want to be together. I just want to be out here together because we've got to stay connected in this thing. If we fracture, it could go fast, but that's not going to happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I don't know if I can coach, but I'm not going to let these guys move apart from each other. We'll just get together quickly tomorrow and move around a little bit. I'm super-excited to see (Roper) respond. Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it. He was just a little bit not himself (last Friday), and I think he learned from it, and I'm excited to see him go out and have a good outing against a good team."
Massey faced one batter in the eighth. Will he start Saturday?
"He will still start on Saturday. Yes. We'll keep our same rotation. It was his bullpen night. I talked to him this morning, and he was a good teammate. He was willing to maybe take his bullpen and take it the mound. I didn't take him out because he walked a guy in front of him. I took him out because the splits say so. The hitter was hitting a hundred points higher against left-handers than he was right- handers. It was just a complete statistical analysis of splits. I just told him it wasn't because I didn't think he could get him out. It's just the book said to do it. He'll be rocked and loaded to go. He didn't throw too many pitches, so he should be good to go."