Everything head coach Brian O'Connor said after Thursday's 10-9 loss to Georgia

Mississippi State suffered its first home loss of the season on Thursday as Georgia captured a 10-9 win in the series opener. It was a Top 5 matchup at Dudy Noble Field that saw State’s rally came up short in the ninth inning.

Afterwards, Mississippi State head coach Brian O’Connor met with the media afterwards to discuss the setback:

Q: A lot of minor issues hurt the team early on. Your thoughts on how it played out?
O’Connor: First of all, we had one or two hit by pitches, a couple of passed balls. We are better than that. We’ve been showing so much better than that from a pitching and catching standpoint. That was disappointing to see, for sure. The fact that in the first five innings they had scored all their runs. I talked to the team after and shared with them from a pitching and defense standpoint, you never know what run is going to cost you the game.

The four that we gave up in the fifth was huge. You can overcome single-run innings but crooked numbers are difficult to overcome.

But really proud of Peyton Fowler keeping us in the game. Jack Bauer was tremendous tonight and then Chris Billingsley came in and got that big strikeout with the bases loaded to give us a chance. But despite the pitching part on the back end of the game, we got to be better behind the plate. It’s got to be cleaner. We’ve got to be technically better than we showed tonight, for sure. But proud of those guys.

Q: You talked of your frustrations after Tuesday’s game. You think any of that boiled over to the start of this game?
O’Connor: I don’t think so at all. I thought our offensive approach was outstanding after their starter even though we only got a couple of runs in the first three innings. I thought our swings were good. I thought our approach against him was really good. He is a good pitcher and has pitched good for Georgia. I thought our approach to get him out of the game when we did was big after only five innings and got his pitch count up and did some really good things.

We showed from an offensive standpoint that we’re not going to go away. That’s the most impressive thing about this team. We were down 10-2 and our offense didn’t pack it in. We kept battling and hanging in there, obviously had the five-run seventh and then had an opportunity to tie the game in the ninth. So just really proud. I don’t think there was any spill over at all. Candidly, I thought they came ready to go with a really good approach. IT’s just the first half of the game there were a couple of opportunities we didn’t cash in. But their pitcher is a good pitcher.

Q: You ended up having to use a good amount of pitchers tonight.
O’Connor: That’s what happens when your starter goes out there and only gives you two innings. We don’t necessarily have anybody in the bullpen that is going to throw 4-5 innings and that’s what we had. We tried to piece it together. IT was unfortunate we couldn’t get the combination of pitchers of (Jack) Gleason and (Dane) Burns to extend the tide a little bit and keep it right there and that was kind of the story of the game.

It has no affect on tomorrow. We still have a lot of available that we have a lot of confidence in with the bullpen.

Q: You mentioned the technical things in catching. You’ve had issues with all three guys now. What is the main thing that sticks out?
O’Connor: It starts with catching the ball. I know for the last couple of weeks Kevin was really separating himself. For whatever reason, he wasn’t himself tonight and that’s where it starts. Just catching the ball. I will have to go back and look at video on some of those blocks and see how far outside they are. But you got to be able to catch the baseball and be better than that. Those guys know that and they are better than that. We will get back to work and hopefully we are better at that tomorrow night.

Q: Your thoughts on Gehrig Frei tonight?
O’Connor: I thought he was good. Gehrig had a big night for us and he has hit that hot spot before. I kind move stuff around a little bit on what I think is the best matchup with their starter on the mound and I felt like he was the right guy in the five spot. On Tuesday I too a look at Jacob Parker there and flip flopping those two guys. But certainly Gehrig had a big night and he was the right guy to hit in that spot behind the 2,3,4 hole hitters. Proud of him and he came ready to play. Got hit by pitch and I don’t know if there are many players that will sit in there on a 96 mph fastball and wear one off the knee. That shows his toughness and competitive spirit for sure.

Q: When you have a game like this where you come up just short, how do you approach the team the rest of the series?
O’Connor: We didn’t make our own breaks tonight, we didn’t. We didn’t execute with runners in scoring position. I know there was 1-2 counts on the mound and two big walks and things like that. I think from an offensive standpoint, we had 14 hits. We just didn’t make the pitches in the clutch and gave them too many free passes.

So I shared with the team that I was proud of them, their fight. A lot of ball clubs would roll over and that’s not this club. This is one of 30 games and you have to take it as that. Then you turn your attention tomorrow with a chance to even the series. Certainly it will be better fundamentally tomorrow to come out on top.