Everything Brian O'Connor said after sweep of Vanderbilt

Mississippi State came into Sunday’s matchup with Vanderbilt with a chance to do something that hasn’t been done in over 25 years.

Brian O’Connor’s offense did just that as the Diamond Dawgs swept the series over the Commodores for the first time since 2000. The offensive approach was relentless and State’s pitching held down the Dores enough to get the run rule win in a 17-7 affair.

After the game, O’Connor spoke to the State media about the win and the series sweep to get them to 20-4.

Question: Thoughts on the sweep.

BOC: “Three huge wins. They were all a little bit different. Today, wind blowing out and hitters type day, our offensive approach was just relentless. Very opportunistic. A lot of two-strike RBI hits. Noah Sullivan starting a rally with two outs with a base hit the other way. I challenged the team last night, that are you satisfied? You have to learn as a team, in this conference when you have an opportunity to do something special on a weekend you need to capitalize on it. We certainly did that today. Pretty complete weekend. It was good to see some guys really emerge.

“Kevin Milewski catching all three games, I thought he caught the ball really well and handled our pitching staff really well. He had a couple of nice home runs. It was really a pretty special weekend and they proved to themselves they can finish somebody off.

“Vanderbilt’s got a really high quality offensive team and I think that speaks to our pitching and how well we pitched this weekend to hold them down. They showed a little bit today their power, but really proud of our whole ball club but especially our pitching staff.”

Q: I’m sure as good as the weekend was you didn’t have all your wishes granted?

BOC: “Sure. Obviously, as a coach or player you’re searching for perfection knowing you’re never going to attain it. Would we have liked Duke Stone to pitch better? Sure, but he’s pitched so great most of the year and it’s a learning opportunity for him. I’m proud of these guys. There’s nothing that I’m disappointed in.

“It was an emotional weekend. Our first SEC (home) series this team, this group together with so many new guys. They handled it really well and it looked like they were enjoying the moment and having a lot of fun out there all weekend. Every time we had to, we kept fighting back. I don’t think there’s too many things that you’d say we need to learn and improve on.”

Q: Do you have an update on Ryan McPherson?

BOC: “Nothing has changed since Friday. He’s continuing to be evaluated. He had an MRI today so we’ll find out what the results of that are. Sometimes you need those just to be precautionary but we’ll know more in the coming days about what his situation is.”

Q: What did you think of the job the bullpen did all weekend?

BOC: “I liked what I saw. Really liked what I saw from Brendan Sweeney last night. That’s the Brendan Sweeney that we saw in the fall and preseason. The velocity was where it needed to be. The changeup and slider was where it needed to be. I thought (Tyler) Pitzer filled up the zone with strikes. Maddox Webb was better than we saw on Friday night. We still didn’t use some guys like Maddox Miller and other guys that we believe can help us. We’re going to need a lot of them (because) we have a pretty good ball club we’re playing on Tuesday. Impressed with what we started to show from a relief pitching standpoint.”

Q: What have you thought about Reed Stallman?

BOC: “Just maturity with Reed Stallman. He’s 23 years old and has been around college baseball. Understands what makes himself successful. Has hit a lot of balls hard. He’s one of the guys I’ve talked about through the totality of the season that’s top three or four on our club as far as hitting the ball hard on a consistent basis. Sometimes they don’t fall for him, today they did. Just maturity, consistency is what he’s brought to the ball club this year.”

Q: What did you think of the offense showcasing power this weekend?

BOC: “You have to hit home runs, but you have to have a complete offensive team. I feel like we showed that this weekend. We showed some power out of a number of different guys. You’ve got to hit home runs, but if you go up there collectively as a group you won’t have a very good offense. What I am impressed with is Noah Sullivan had two base hits the other way. Jacob Parker against the submarine guy not trying to do too much and pulling off the ball and taking the base hit right up the middle.

“That’s maturity. That’s what you have to do, you have to take what the game gives you. Sometimes that’s going to allow you to hit the ball out of the ballpark and we’re going to have to do that. Even though we struck out eight times today, in the first two ball games our strikeouts were really low. You have to put the ball in play and compete and I feel like we’re doing that really well.”