Everything Monte Lee said after South Carolina's midweek victory over Presbyterian

South Carolina interim head baseball coach Monte Lee spoke to the media following the team’s 9-3 win over Presbyterian on Tuesday. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“We played really well tonight. This guy to my left, Connor Chicoli, came in in the second inning, gave us four innings. I thought he threw, maybe, one of the better games he’s pitched all year, really. Just pounding the strike zone, mixed pitches, threw the ball outstanding for us tonight. After giving up two runs in the first, it was great to be able to bring him in the game and just settle in and then allow our offense to get going.

“I thought, offensively, today, we have had a good day at the plate. Hit some home runs, scored in five straight innings to start the game off. And all in all, had really good production.

“Six through nine in the lineup… [KJ] Scobey hit a homer and hit another ball hard to center field. [Logan] Sutter had a great day. It was great to see. Logan Sutter got an opportunity to play today and certainly took advantage of it. Swung the bat well and really played well defensively at first base. [Ethan] Lizama had a big night, and it was good to see [Luke] Yuhasz have a good day at the plate. We needed to get him going.

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“So all in all, swung the bats well, pitched it well, played great defensively and got the win.”

You mentioned it was a good day for you guys at the plate. How good is it to see the guys finally put some good swings on the ball, ball leaves the ballpark — and especially after the weekend you guys had?

“Any time you have a weekend like we had where we didn’t swing the bats well, you’re always concerned, right? And you go into the first game in a midweek, and you’re still thinking, ‘Okay, I’ve got to make sure, as a coach, that I put together a good game plan. What’s my message going to be for the guys today; what’s our approach and our plan going to be? What’s batting practice going to be like?

“We changed some things up. We did some things a little bit differently. Again, sometimes, with consistency comes monotony. You want to be consistent as a coach with your messages and how you’re coaching your players, but you also have to think sometimes, ‘Okay, we’re trying to be as consistent as we can with how we’re coaching our players, but sometimes you got to change it up.’ So we did. We changed it up a little bit. Tried some different things in the cages, little bit different batting practice routine. I’m not saying that it made a huge difference, but just felt like we needed to change things up, the mindset of the players, a little bit.

“I thought they did a good job tonight. The only hit that Pat [Evans] had of the night was his first at-bat of the game. But to start the game off with just a good old line drive up the middle, and then [Tyler] Bak hits the ball the other way. Just staying on the baseball and trying to have better at-bats using the whole field. Jake Randolph hit a double to the opposite field. Scobey’s home run was to straightaway center. Yuhasz’s home run was slightly opposite field.

“Just trying to get the guys to stay on the ball more and be more complete hitters and be tougher outs. Quite honestly, like, make the defense earn their outs. That was the message of today, and I thought we did a nice job of that. Sutter, two two-strike hits. He did a nice job today.

“So all in all, we did a better job of just staying on the baseball, not pulling off so many pitches. We were certainly not perfect. We had some innings where we still did it, but I thought we were better overall today, one through nine in the lineup.

“And we can’t walk away without talking about our pitching. I mean, goodness, Chicoli on, we were really good. I thought [Elijah] Foster came in, hadn’t gotten the ball in a while. Would have loved to have left him out there a little longer, but we wanted to get Hudson Lee in there versus a left-hander. And he did his job: Foster pounded the strike zone, got two outs. Hudson Lee came in, did a nice job. [Parker] Marlatt, I think, punched out three in a row, and he did a great job. [Josh] Gregoire, [Cooper] Parks, they all threw the ball really, really well. So I was proud of our pitching staff.

“Again, just one through nine, thought we were a little bit better today. Hopefully, we can carry that into the weekend. But we’ve got a couple days of practice, and we got to get ready for Kentucky. They present some challenges for anybody with their style of play, so need to make sure that we’re ready for those guys. But I was proud of how we played today.”

Chicoli’s gotten the ball in the midweek for you guys in a bunch of different roles, whether it’s starting or long relief. Seems like he’s been “the guy” in the midweek for you guys. Does it help, as a head coach, just having a guy that you can count on to go out there and get those outs on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when most folks usually want the ball on the weekend?

“Well, it’s a domino effect, quite honestly. I mean, when you look at the middle of the week, you’ve got to get through nine innings, and you need stability there. You need somebody that you can give the ball to, that you could stretch out and give you some length in the middle of the week so that you’re not having to use some of the guys that you’re going to use on the weekends.

“Not that we don’t, and that we wouldn’t, use our higher-leverage guys. We did tonight; we threw some guys that we throw on a regular basis out of the bullpen tonight. But you got to get length somewhere. And when you use some of your guys multiple times on the weekends, you can’t use them in the middle of the week.

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“So we went into this game literally thinking, ‘Okay, we’ve got about five guys that we feel like we can pitch tonight.’ We threw more than that. And the reason that we were able to throw more than that was because of why? Because we scored runs. We had enough of a cushion runs-wise to be able to pitch some guys that haven’t been able to get the ball.

“A guy like Chico gives you some length and gives your offense an opportunity in the middle of the week to score some runs and get a lead to where you can pitch some other guys, so he’s incredibly valuable in that regard. And between him and Prisco, those two guys in the middle of the week have been able to give us some length. Couldn’t use Prisco tonight because we used him on the weekend, but Chico was really good for us, and he’s been very stable for us in the middle of the week.”

Was today a day off for [Will] Craddock?

“Well, he got banged up, so he was out. He was out for a reason. He got banged up in Sunday’s game, and we hope he will be back. It’s kind of a day-to day deal. We feel like he should be back by Friday. He felt better today than he did yesterday, but he was sore on a play at the plate, slide at the plate. He got banged up a little bit, so we held him out, again, just to try to give him time to recover. And hopefully, we’ll get him back by this weekend.”

What does having Sutter swinging the bat like he did tonight do for this offense moving forward?

“He had a great night tonight, and that’s going to create some discussions, right? Look, we’re looking for offense. It’s no secret. Like, we’re looking for guys, when they get opportunities, to step in, swing the bat well. And when you play like that, it should warrant more opportunities, right? So I certainly have to look at that and think to myself, ‘Okay, how can I get him in the lineup?’

“Again, if he keeps swinging the bat like that, that gives us a boost that we certainly need. You get in there and you play well, you’ve earned a right to get more opportunities. So we’ll certainly have to take a look at it going into the weekend.”

You mentioned all those other pitchers. Patrick Dudley, gave him the start tonight. It was probably not the outing he wanted, but what went into the decision to have him start tonight?

“Well, we were hoping to give him a start and then be able to use… Before the game started, we’re looking at it like, ‘Okay, these five guys we feel like we want to get into the ball game. If Dudley can start the game and give us at least a little bit of length, then we can go to those guys and keep them shorter.’

“I thought he threw fine. I know he gave up the two-run homer — he hit the guy before that — but leadoff guy, made some pitches, punched him out. But on the other side of that, too, you give up multiple runs in the first inning, you can’t be down three or four runs in the first two innings. Then, you’re playing catch up for several innings, trying to get back into the ball game, so we immediately went to Chico. But we were hoping to get two innings out of him, and it was good to get him out there.

“I actually thought he threw the ball fine, really. I wasn’t frustrated by the home run, more the ‘free 90.’ When you hit guys, you put them on base, and the next thing you know those types of things can happen. But it’s good to see him go out there and get an opportunity to compete. We just had to go get him probably an inning too early. I would have liked to have gotten two innings out of him, if at all possible.”

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