Everything Monte Lee said after South Carolina's midweek loss to The Citadel

South Carolina interim head baseball coach Monte Lee spoke to the media following the team’s 4-0 loss to The Citadel on Tuesday. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“We give a lot of credit to The Citadel tonight. They played a good baseball game; they really did. Their starter, Trip Brown, was outstanding — pounded the strike zone, commanded his fastball. We put a lot of balls in play but really didn’t have anything to show for it. Through his four innings, we had some opportunities. I mean, in the fourth inning, we had first and second, nobody out. We don’t get a bunt down, wind up flying out in that at-bat. And then, next hitter, [Dawson] Harman smokes the ball to left-center field. If we get a bunt down, it probably scores us a run right there and gets us back in the game. Later in the ball game, in the seventh, first and second, nobody out, and we don’t get anything out of that.

“And we really didn’t have that many opportunities outside of that pitching-wise. I mean, we were fortunate to only give up four runs. We walked, I think, seven or eight and hit one. So, we didn’t do a great job of pounding the strike zone. Connor [Chicoli] was outstanding for us; [Elijah] Foster did a great job there at the end. But just didn’t do a good enough job of pounding the strike zone and giving them opportunities with base runners. Ran a pick at second base, had the guy dead in the water, and we just dropped the ball. Next thing you know, it’s second and third; both those runs score on a base hit.

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“At the end of the day, we just didn’t play well. We didn’t do the little things that we needed to do in the ball game to help us win. Not to say that we would have, but we had some opportunities to score — just a couple of them. And we just didn’t get the job done. The Citadel played a really good baseball game. They made us pay — two-out hitting, felt like the runs that they scored had some ‘free 90s’ in front of them.

“So, bottom line is, Chicoli was outstanding for us. Thought Foster threw the ball good for us. Hit some balls okay, but, ultimately, we just didn’t do enough. We had the leadoff man on base in two of those innings — and first and second, nobody out. Didn’t score, didn’t do anything. So, again, just needed to be better offensively tonight, and The Citadel was the better team.”

You mentioned some of them, but there were a lot of little mistakes that you guys made throughout the night. It seems like they’ve happened quite often this year. Why has that been the case?

“I wish I had an answer; I really do. I don’t have the answer to that.

“We need to be fundamentally sound. It’s just that simple. We need to be a better team fundamentally in a lot of different areas. It just seems like, when we make mistakes, teams make us pay. And when they make mistakes… In games like this, we didn’t do anything to capitalize when they gave us opportunities.”

You guys had just three hits tonight. What do you chalk the offensive struggles up to? There were times where you were able to get contact, but seemingly the ball didn’t fall where they weren’t.

“Well, it wasn’t due to strikeouts. I mean, quite honestly, [Michael] Gibson was good, their guy to the ‘pen. He punched out four but, until he came into the game, I don’t think we had but, like, two strikeouts. We put the ball in play. They just executed pitches. I think, at the end of the day, that’s what I saw. They just didn’t give us anything. I mean, they threw the ball over the plate. They made plays behind their pitching staff. Quite honestly, that’s what they’ve done all year.

“Coach [Russell] Triplett’s a great coach in the two years that he’s been there. Their program has gotten better because they pitch, they play defense, they do the little things, they get bunts down, they’ll run on you, they two-strike hit, they two-out hit. You know, they don’t hit a ball over your head. I mean, you look at the hits, all of their hits were, for the most part, just singles right over the infield, ground balls through the infield. They know who they are, and they do a good job of maximizing what they are. And that’s why he’s a good coach.”

From your perspective, what happened on [Ethan] Lizama going to second on that ball that got away and went towards first base?

“He should’ve stayed at first base. I mean, that’s what happened. The throw got away, and the catcher [Garrett Fulmer] did a good job of being where he was supposed to be. So, the catcher’s backing up first base, running down the line, and he’s just got to know. It’s a 2-0 ball game at that point; there’s an overthrow. Just stay at first base. There’s no need to try to run and try to be aggressive there. You got Harman coming up. Harman represents the tying run. We needed Harman to walk up to the plate and hit right there. So, bottom line is, he should have stayed at first base.”

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You had a little something going last week with putting those wins together. You lose to Kentucky, and you lose this one tonight. Now, you got to go on the road. So, what do you say to your guys? What did you sense from them coming out of this? How do you get them to regroup for LSU?

“Well, they’re disappointed, and I was disappointed. I shared with them just the hard facts of why we lost tonight and the areas that we got to be better at.

“I think, ultimately, for us, it’s easy to say, ‘Just flush it.’ Sometimes, you take games like this, and you win games. And then, when you lose, you need to learn something, and you need to apply some of the things that happened in the game that you need to improve on so that they don’t happen as often. These kids are not perfect. They’re going to make mistakes; we’re not going to win every game. But, ultimately, the reasons that we did not win the game tonight, we’ve got to clean up.

“We’ve got to be a team, quite honestly. When you look at our team, we have to be a team that doesn’t beat ourselves. Good teams do not beat themselves. They pound the strike zone, they make every defensive play behind our pitching staff, they put together good at-bats. When they get opportunities to get bunts down, or they get opportunities to drive runners in from third with less than two outs, they get the runners over, and they get the runners in. They come up with big hits; they battle with two strikes. They just do all the little things that it takes to put pressure every pitch on the opposition. And there’s a lot of times where we do that.

“Again, The Citadel just played a better baseball game than we did tonight. That’s the bottom line. Their starter was better than our starter. He threw four innings; he threw a lot of fastballs, and we couldn’t catch up to it. He was better; he have them more length. We had to go to the bullpen early again, and then we got length out of Chicoli.

“But, ultimately, for us, when we’re good, we score early, and we didn’t have an answer for Trip Brown tonight. He was outstanding, and he deserves the credit. But when you look at when we score runs and when we win, we score early. And for whatever reason, we weren’t ready to hit his fastball first time through the order, and he made us pay for that.”

What’d you think of Josh [Gunther]’s start?

“Josh battled. I thought he was a little bit better, but we had three leadoff walks. So, I thought he was better. I thought he commanded his fastball better. Just got to get his off-speed in the strike zone more. But it was good for him to be able to go out there and lengthen him out a little bit.”

How is Dawson doing after that play at third?

“As far as Harman goes, he’s probably getting stitched up here as we speak. I mean, he got spiked pretty good by the baserunner sliding into third base. Hopefully, they’ll get him stitched up, and he’ll probably be sore for a couple of days. Who knows, right?

“I hope he’s going to be okay. I give him a lot of credit for gutting it out and playing for the rest of the game with it.”

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