Alabama-Oral Roberts Quotes and Notes
3/11/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 11, 2012
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HEAD COACH Mitch Gaspard
Opening statement:
"We got a good game from Trey Pilkington today, he certainly pitched it well enough to win the game. We kind of broke down there in the ninth inning, with a few things, and still was a pitch away. I give their hitter a lot of credit. He did a good job with two strikes to fight the ball back through the middle. The story of the game to me is, offensively we continue to struggle. We were not aggressive enough. We're taking too many pitches and have too many strikeouts. We've got to get better offensively. That's the area that creates energy. Anytime you aren't hitting, you're making yourself vulnerable in those spots for them to comeback late, like they did today"
On being disappointed with today after yesterday's win:
"I'm very disappointed. I thought yesterday's win would build up momentum into today. I give a lot of credit to their pitcher, he pitched extremely well as all of their guys did. At this level and this type of competition, we've played enough of these quality teams now that we've got to start swinging the bat and you've got to create more innings to where you can put more pressure on your opponents and then you've got to deliver the big hit."
On why Ian Gardeck did not come in for the ninth inning:
"Jake Hubbard has been really good. He's been our most effective guy in the back end. Right now we still have to continue to get Gardeck better. He's got to throw more strikes. Our theme this week was that we were going to throw a lot of strikes. Ian will work his way back in there, but right now Hubbard has been our best guy in the back of the game."
#11, Trey Pilkington, RHP
On it being a tough way to lose a game :
"That's a tough one to swallow. We just have to get back to work. We got better this weekend. We came out there and did a lot of things right.
On not getting enough offense behind him:
"That really doesn't happen. I just tried to go out there and give my team the opportunity to win. Just like all the pitchers do, we came out there and did our job."
#3, Kenny Roberts, 2B
On the tough loss:
"We just didn't have enough hits or enough quality at-bats at the plate to win. We had pretty good pitching from Trey, Keller and Hubbard, but we just didn't swing it enough."
On why the offense is struggling:
"We swing at a lot of bad pitches. As a team, we have to give more quality at-bats. We are hitting the pitchers' pitches. We aren't hitting what we want to hit. It's a struggle right now, but we have to keep grinding. It's very frustrating. It's getting to the point where we don't know what to do because we work so hard on our swings and mechanics but it's just not there. We just have to keep grinding."
POST GAME NOTES:
*Taylor Dugas has hit safely in the past eight games.
*Dugas was a combined 5-of-12 on the weekend with one RBI.
*Ben Moore was 4-for-10 this weekend with two runs.
*Kenny Roberts finished the day 1-for-4 with one run and one RBI. This weekend, he went 5-for-11 with three runs.
*In his first career start, Trey Pilkington pitched a season-high 6.0 innings allowing only one earned run and getting a career-high five strikeouts, besting his previous career-high of four against Alcorn State on Feb. 20 of last season.
*Josh Rosecrans made his third pinch-hit appearance of the year, contributing an RBI sacrifice fly in the seventh inning that gave Alabama a 2-1 lead.
