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

South Carolina interim head baseball coach Monte Lee spoke to the media following the team’s 5-2 loss to Winthrop on Tuesday. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“Give credit to Winthrop; they were the better team tonight. Pitched better, hit better than we did.

“We had some opportunities — pretty much the third through the sixth inning — with some runners on base and just couldn’t come up with a big hit. Thought [Alex] Philpott battled there at the end. It was great to see him compete with runners on base, give it everything he had there. But ultimately, we didn’t swing the bat well enough. We had runners in scoring position. Had the bases loaded, nobody out for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings; had opportunities and just didn’t come up with a hit. So, quite honestly, not good enough.

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“This program is built on toughness. It’s built on competitiveness. And this just isn’t it. We got to be better. We got to find a way to compete, show more fire, more passion. It’s not acceptable here. I know we’ve been on a tough run, but at the end of the day, we need to see who’s willing to come up and compete with some passion and some fire and play better because this certainly isn’t the standard at South Carolina baseball. And that’s on me, too. I’m accountable for that, as well. But the end of the day, we just got to be better.”

Two days before you guys start another series at Vanderbilt, how do you fix that? Do you give guys who maybe haven’t played more chances, or do you just hope it gets better?

“Quite honestly, we don’t have that many guys that can play that aren’t playing. I mean, we’ve only got, like, a handful of guys that aren’t in the games right now. Some of those guys are banged up.

“I mean, at the end of the day, we just need to find a way to be more competitive and tougher with runners in scoring position. That’s the bottom line. Again, we had some opportunities to blow this game open, get back in it, and we didn’t. And look, it’s been an issue all year. I haven’t done a good enough job of preparing these guys and getting these guys ready for those types of situations. Just need to be better.”

[Logan] Prisco came out after six pitches. Do you have an early update on his status?

“Not yet. I haven’t had a chance talk to the trainer. So, whenever I get a chance talk to the trainer, I’ll have a little better idea.

“He just didn’t feel great. When he got out there, he threw a handful of pitches and didn’t feel great. The velocity was down, so we got him out of the game. So, I’ll know more, maybe, here in a little bit, but more than likely tomorrow.”

With Hoover around the corner at the start of next week, is there a pitch count on the starters this weekend?

“Yeah. I mean, we’ll certainly prepare for Hoover based on this weekend in regards to how we set up our pitching, yes.”

Do you hold somebody out from the weekend, from a pitching standpoint, to go on Tuesday in Hoover, or is that something that you still have to decide?

“I think, probably, what we’ll wind up doing is splitting a game with two of our starters just to minimize the pitch count a little bit, cut the pitch count down. Basically, take two of our guys and split one of the games would be our plan right now so that we would have both of those guys ready for Tuesday’s game.”

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You got some games still to play, but how much do you want this job permanently?

“Look, I just want us to play competitive baseball. I knew, when all of this happened, that there’s no guarantees. There’s no guarantees in life. You don’t get handed anything here; got to earn everything you get. I’ve had to earn everything that I’ve gotten in my life, and I’m not asking for anything. But whether I get this job, another job, whatever the case may be, I just want players that will compete their freaking rear ends off and that are tough and hard-nosed.

“I’ve been coaching for 26 years. I’ve coached a lot of teams that would fight you to the death, to the end. That’s all I want. Whether we win, whether we lose, I want to be able to go to bed at night saying, ‘For nine innings, our guys freaking fought as hard as they could.’ That’s it. All I’m looking for is, I want guys to take pride in who they are as men, who they are as players, take pride in this program. They know what this program stands for, and they’re going to fight and do everything they can to play their best baseball. That’s all I can ask for.

“Right now, we’re just not doing that. And we’re going to have to find a way to do it if we want to play deep into the tournament at Hoover.”

The hitting, that’s sort of your thing. And even bad hitting teams will have, maybe, one or two guys around .300 or so. Your top guy [Talmadge LeCroy] is .267. It’s sort of been a season-long hitting slump. Is there an explanation for why an entire group of guys can’t put it together offensively?

“I wish I had an answer for you because I look at a lot of our guys, and I think they’re better than their numbers would indicate, for sure. I’m also optimistic, right? I believe in the players. But I think that we’ve had some guys that just haven’t put up the numbers that I would have expected them to put up.

“What’s the reason? I mean, look, show up here at about 1 o’clock every day for a 6:30 game. From 1 o’clock until game time, I want you to find a college baseball program that hits more than we do. You can ask the players — we do early work, then we take batting practice, then we do defensive work, then we come back and hit again. I don’t know if any team across baseball can hit more than the Gamecocks. We try our best to prepare our guys. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Maybe, we hit too much. That I don’t know. But I would rather try my best to over-prepare a team than I would feel like, when you go out there, that they’re underprepared.

“So, I can’t answer that question, why we have so many guys that aren’t hitting up to what I believe is their capability. But it certainly falls on me. I’m in charge of the hitters. They have not hit the way that I thought they would hit. We’re not where we need to be this year on the offensive side of the ball. So, I’ll certainly take the blame for that, as well. But I know, when it comes to preparation and hard work, that the guys are doing everything they can to prepare to play their best baseball.”

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