Postgame Quotes: Kentucky (April 1)

2021 Mississippi State Baseball
Postgame Quotes
Mississippi State vs. Kentucky
April 1, 2021

Head Coach Chris Lemonis

Q: What did you see from Christian [MacLeod] tonight that you didn't really see last week against Arkansas?
CL: He commanded the fast ball really well tonight. I think he had his best breaking ball of the year, which we needed against some of their really good hitters. When he has all three pitches going like that, he's really tough to hit.

Q: A lot of guys were stranded on base tonight, what did you see on the plate and from the Kamren [James] hit or Rowdey [Jordan's] home run?
CL: You know, there are power arms in there. I think everybody in the game tonight, both sides, were having a hard time getting on the fastball with the power arms, chilly [weather], and everything else. I thought Luke Hancock gave us two big swings early to give us a little cushion and play with a lead, then Kamren breaks it open late. I thought he had a huge at-bat with the bases loaded in the fifth when he took the walk with two outs. It just wasn't a real offensive night. For us to get a couple of hits early was huge.

Q: How were you able to get Ryan Hagenow out of the ballgame early?
CL: He's had high pitch counts in all of his starts. I think that was his longest start in terms of pitches for the year. He just has a tendency to throw a lot of pitches and we do a great job of extending [opposing pitchers]. In the first, when we hit the first pitch, we had three guys on and he had like eight pitches. We really didn't extend him then, but we were able to move it up as the game went on.

Q: What was the message to the team after last weekend walking into this series?
CL: Well, we talked about what it is to [handle adversity]. If you're going to play in this league, you know [that will happen]. Most of my guys have played very little SEC baseball. We were so excited the first weekend and then we get [swept]. I really challenged them before today's game. I told them we'll learn a lot about our team because if you're going to play in this league then you've got to be able to handle the adversity. You've got to be able to fight back. You've got to have a real belief in yourself as a player.

Q: What are you seeing from Brandon [Smith] right now?
CL: I told [Scott] Foxhall this in the dugout afterwards, I thought he was not good at all against Arkansas. Tonight, the stuff was pretty good. We make an error and they hit through the shift. The biggest mistake is he throws the ball to the backstop, which we can't do. I thought he was really sharp tonight and [pitching] at the knees. We don't make a couple of plays behind him, and [Ryan] Ritter gets a good swing off. I thought he was much better this week than last. He's a big part of who we are. He's a really tough kid and we need him out there.

Q: What were your conversations like during this week with Christian [MacLeod]?
CL: This is bad to say, but I didn't talk to Christian this week. He's a pretty hard-working kid. He came here and worked every day. Him and [Coach Foxhall] worked on making pitches. He missed some pitches last week. So that's what they worked on in the bullpen. Usually, for the pitchers, I'm just the encourager. They only need so many voices and Fox has a great voice for them to listen to. They had a great pen and they worked. Our kids were disappointed last week. They were pissed. They take it personally. This week they got after it and you could see the result from Christian there.

Q: You brought in Houston Harding to face [T.J.] Collett, lefty on lefty, take me through that sequence.
CL: We know [T.J.] Collett is one of the better power hitters in the league, but he struggles a lot more against left-handers. We felt like at that point, for the one-hitter to run [Houston] out there and see if we could get him out. Landon [Sims] was hot to face the next guy. It was a one at-bat thing, but Coach Foxhall made the right call there to put Hooty in there. Hooty is in the moments, he's a tough kid. He ran out there and made a couple really nice pitches.

Mississippi State University Athletics

Postgame Quotes: Kentucky (April 1)

Players Mentioned

Luke Hancock

Houston Harding

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