Alabama-UAB Quotes and Notes
4/10/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 10, 2012
HEAD COACH Mitch Gaspard
Opening statement
"Well first of all, a lot of credit goes to UAB. They just outplayed us tonight in every area of the game. Offensively we hit some balls hard early in the game and they made some nice defensive plays, and then when we went to the bullpen it really blew up. They had a couple big innings and the game just got out of hand from there, and a little too much to recover from. I thought we were a little flat and just had a poor performance. We didn't play very well at all tonight."
On if this game kills the momentum that was built over the weekend or is this something that can be wiped off:
"Well right now that's what you have to do, you just have to wipe it away and go home. But as I just told the team, this is an opportunity for us to add some guys to the pitching staff but tonight we didn't. We had to get Turnbull out of the game because we would like to have him available for this weekend and the rest of the guys just didn't step up tonight. Tomorrows going to be a similar situation against a good Southeastern Louisiana team. Case Nixon is going to get the start, Gardeck is going to go out and we need a couple of those guys to pitch well so we can add a few bullets in there as we get into the weekend series. I don't think it kills the momentum but I think a lot hinges on tomorrow now heading into Southeastern. You need to have a good offensive performance and a couple of those guys need to step up and pitch well for us."
On if that's the nature of things right now, just being really thin in the bullpen:
"We found a little bit of a formula to work on the weekends, but we need more. You need those eight or 10 guys, not six or seven and that's what is disappointing right now. Some of those guys are getting some shots and you have to take advantage when you get those opportunities or you're not going to get many opportunities."
On if the offense just wasn't getting good at-bats:
"Well I thought we had some decent at-bats early in the game and they made some nice plays and we didn't string a whole lot together. Then when the game gets sideways, it gets tough when your behind by that much and the focus gets lost a little bit. We'll see tomorrow where we are at, but offensively it needs to be better than however many hits we had and one run. You're not going to win many games doing that. But hopefully we will respond tomorrow and have better offense and play a cleaner game. That's what was most disappointing tonight was coming off the weekend for us to not come play a good clean game today."
POST GAME NOTES:
* With a leadoff triple in the bottom of the first inning, Taylor Dugas added to his school record in career triples, posting his 15th triple of his career and the fourth of the season. Dugas extends his reached base streak to 45 games.
* A single in the sixth extends Ben Moore's team leading hitting streak to 12 games. Also extends his reached base streak to 24 games.
*In his fifth career start, UA freshman Spencer Turnbull threw 5.0 innings, allowing two runs on three hits while striking out four.
* Alabama senior right-handed pitcher Jason Zylstra made his fourth appearance of the season, pitching a perfect eighth and ninth inning of relief. The two innings pitched is the longest appearance of the career for Zylstra.
* Alabama senior shortstop Jared Reaves finished 3-for-4 on the night, tallying two singles and a double. It was the 12th multiple hit game of the season for Reaves, and the third time this year he has totaled three hits in a game.
