Everything Monte Lee said after South Carolina's Thursday victory over Texas

South Carolina interim head baseball coach Monte Lee spoke to the media following the team’s 9-1 victory over No. 2 Texas on Thursday. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“What a ball game. We’ve been talking all week about playing a complete baseball game. Got started against Wofford in the middle of the week — threw the ball incredibly well, swung the bats well, played great defensively — and carried that right into today against a great Texas ball club.

“We needed a good start out of Alex [Valentin]. And man, did he battle. He just battled and battled and battled for us and gave us everything he could. We turned the ball over to Zach Russell, and Zach just continues to get better and better. So proud of just how much he’s matured on the mound. He’s got a great fastball, and the cutter, slider — whatever it is he throws — is just nasty. But he has really started to gain his command. Thought he threw the ball super well. And then we turned the ball over to Philly [Alex Philpott]. Got Philly hot for the last nine outs, and just brought him into the game and let him finish the ball game.

“So proud of our offense, too. I mean, [Texas’ Ruger] Riojas, I think he just got rewarded, like, the halfway point of the season ‘pitcher of the year’ or something. Had 39 innings pitched, 64 strikeouts at only, I think, seven walks on the season, so he had just been dominant. And we squared him up. That’s the bottom line. We were on the attack. We were going to hunt and attack him.

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“We just got so much momentum there in the second inning. Talmadge [LeCroy] led the inning off with a walk, then [KJ] Scobey smoked the ball. And then [Beau] Hollins picked up a big RBI. We had a little luck — [Will] Craddock got the infield single, and then [Erik] Parker double, Pat [Evans] hammered a double RBI, then [Tyler] Bak double RBI. We had a big inning right there in the second inning. And this guy [Evans] ran one out of the yard later in the ball game just to give us some cushion.

“Ultimately, we played a complete baseball game. Super grateful for the fans who came out to support the guys tonight. Hopefully, with the win tonight, we’ll get a little more support tomorrow, get more people in the stands for a Friday night game. And, hopefully, we can continue to build some positive momentum and find a way to compete to win a series tomorrow.”

It seemed like you guys were able to really get to Riojas, especially on his off-speed. I mean, the fastball was really good, but the off-speed, you guys really seemed to sit on pretty well. What was the scouting report from what you guys noticed about a pitcher that just hasn’t struggled this year?

“Look, I give a lot of credit. Since Stu [Stuart Lake] has come on board, myself, Stu, John Hendry and Will Mann… Will’s our student; he’s our director of analytics. He does such a great job of building the scouting reports, along with John. Like, those two guys do a great job of working on the scouting reports together and coming up with a plan. They give Stu and I the information, and we try to simplify it for the guys. But it’s really a group effort. It’s not just one guy or anything like that.

“I talked to John after he and Will put together a report and just asked him, ‘I know this guy throws five pitches, right? I mean, he’s throwing a fastball, slider, cutter, curveball and a changeup. We can’t cover all those pitches. What do you think?’ And John said, ‘Hey, look, we got to make him a two-pitch guy. You just got to hunt the fastball and see the cutter and really do a good job of attacking those two pitches. If you see something soft, like the curveball or changeup, just let it go. But we’ve got to hunt the fastball and basically make him a two-pitch guy.’ And a lot of those pitches that we hit were cutters, sliders that he left over the plate.

“Just got some momentum going. Offense is contagious. It’s really that simple. Last three games, unfortunately, we didn’t win the Sunday game in Georgia, but we swung the bat well in that game swung the bat well against Wofford, swung the bat well again tonight. So it’s really just been about, ‘We’re hunting pitches.’ We call it ‘hunt and shrink.’ We’re trying to hunt pitches before two strikes, and then shrink the zone down to one pitch in one spot with two strikes. Because, I mean, let’s just be honest: The Gamecocks tend to strike out some, and we strike out some because we tend to expand the strike zone entirely too much with two strikes. We’re almost too defensive and trying to put balls in play.

“I told him, ‘I’m tired of watching that. We’re going to shrink the zone and be offensive in two-strike counts. Just be offensive, like, all the time.’ You walk up to the plate, you’ve got a weapon in your hand. An aluminum bat is a weapon. So be offensive all the time and really just try to take the pressure out of it. Hey, we’re going to strike out some. So be it. But let’s be offensive. Just change the mindset of players a little bit to be a little bit more confident and aggressive with their plans and with their approaches.

“Look, it’s worked for us so far. We’ve got a big game tomorrow and got to prepare and get ready for that. We got to enjoy this win, but we also got to move on from it and get ready for tomorrow. I’m super proud of the way that we played tonight. Hopefully, we can continue to do it.”

Philpott was super effective tonight. He also threw the most pitches he has in an outing all season. Is he on any sort of pitch count still? And if so, how do you go about continuing to ramp him up?

“I think what you’re seeing is kind of a steady progression for Philly. He threw three [innings] tonight. I think he could go out and throw four to five innings now. I mean, if we needed to start him or piggy-back him behind the starter and let him go four or five innings, I think he can do it. His velocity still was good after 30 pitches. The stuff looked good. Command was great.

“So I think he’s physically able to throw, I don’t know, 60, 70 pitches. I don’t know if we’d go much more than that just because he hasn’t been there yet this year. I tend to just look at the scoreboard. If he’s throwing hard, the velocity is still there, and the command is there, then you tend to think he’s strong enough to maintain it and harness it. So I would think he could probably go 60, 70 pitches just based on what I saw tonight. He threw 38, and he didn’t labor a whole lot. He looked good.”

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What were you expecting that Valentin could do tonight for you in terms of pitch count? He labored a little bit in that first inning, threw a bunch of pitches. Were you surprised to be able to get as much out of him as you did?

“I was very pleased with what we got out of him. And I, actually, would have liked to have seen him attack a little bit more with the fastball. I thought he probably tried to mix maybe a little bit too much. Like, his off-speed stuff was good, but I thought he got in some deeper counts just by probably mixing a hair too much, just for my liking. They weren’t really squaring him up. The three-hole guy [Texas’ Aiden Robbins] got him on a 2-2 changeup. I think it was a changeup up and out over the plate. That guy’s hitting .380. He’s a good hitter. But I thought he could have maybe extended himself another batter to three batters had he just been a hair more aggressive with the fastball and not tried to mix quite as much. I thought he threw great. I really did.

“That’s asking a lot out of him, but he was fired up and ready to go. Heck, we were taking BP, and he was down in the bullpen throwing med balls against the wall. I almost tried to find Terry [Rooney] during batting price and say, ‘Hey, man, we got tone that kid down. He’s down there slinging med balls in the wall, and he’s going crazy.’ He’s a lot of fun to be around. I absolutely love him. But what a warrior, right? I mean, this is the third time he’s thrown this week. Just to go out there and compete like he does… And he wanted the ball. He wanted to help his team win. It means a lot for him to be here, and you can see that, the emotion of him.

“He gave me about what we expect. If we could have gotten four out of him, I would have been ecstatic. But we were looking for probably three or four innings, just based on the fact that he had thrown some this week.”

This is South Carolina’s sixth SEC game under you, and you’ve won two. You’ve been competitive almost every time. From your standpoint, what’s the big-picture view of your team as you grind through this SEC schedule, but you see this side of your team now that you’re at the helm?

“Well, I think it just gives the kids some proof and validation that, ‘Hey, we can win in this league. We can play good baseball and win in this league.’ We’ve been competitive, but we haven’t, and I’ve said this a time or two, kicked the door down. We played nine innings of baseball in all phases of the game at a high enough level to beat the best teams in college baseball, and we did that tonight. So we’ve been competitive. We played maybe our best baseball game of the year, I would say, tonight, so that’s got to get the kids confidence. We just got to keep building on it.

“I’ll say this: If you want to find a way to play in the postseason, you got to be playing your best baseball in the second half of the season. It’s really that simple. We know that we’ve got an uphill battle. I talked to the kids earlier this week, and I said, ‘Where we want to get to is going to be hard, but it ain’t impossible. And there’s a big difference.’ When you start looking at it that way, it’s going to be hard, but it’s not impossible. I gave them some examples of some teams who were right where we are that got there. It’s happened before. We just got to believe in each other. We got show up every day confident that we’re going to go out there and compete for nine innings and find a way to win. The kids, certainly, have responded to it.

“We’re certainly not perfect, but we’re starting to figure some things out. We’re running the same lineup out there, and we’re going to stick with that lineup. That lineup seems to be gelling a little bit now. We’re starting to figure out the roles a little bit more on the pitching staff. A couple guys have started to emerge a little bit. So, hopefully, we can keep getting better and better here in the second half and just see what happens. But we’re going to give it everything we’ve got, and that’s just all there is to it.”

You mentioned in here and on the TV interview that Russell has been progressively getting better. What’s been different about him that’s allowed him to become so much better and step forward?

“I know I say it all the time, and it’s the most simple answer ever, but he’s just throwing more strikes. He gets to strike one, he doesn’t have to labor now to get back into the count. I think, as a freshman, you see this guy come out there, and he’s throwing 95 [mph] with a slider. He’s athletic, but it’s 1-0, 2-0. Then there’s a strike, then it’s 3-1. Every pitch is such a leverage pitch to try to keep the guy from walking to first base. Now, he’s able to come out and really command two pitches to where he can get ahead of batters and pitch more aggressively. That’s the biggest difference that I see: He’s just ahead of batters more. He can harness his pitches. He has better command. He’s more confident.

“And you could see it coming. I mean, you could see it last year, between him and Cooper Parks. These guys throw hard, and they’re really good athletes. Like, these guys could play a position. Cooper Parks was a high school shortstop. I remember him coming to my camps, and the guy was athletic. Zach Russell was a high school shortstop. They’re not just big donkeys on the mound that throw hard. Those guys, they can move around a little bit. Usually, those types of guys wind up getting better and better and better as they progress year by year in the program.”

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