Everything Mark Kingston said after South Carolina's 10-2 win over Missouri
Following a 10-2 win over Missouri on Friday, South Carolina head coach Mark Kingston spoke with GamecockCentral to break down the game. Here’s what he had to say.
On going 0-for-2 on challenges tonight
“You give it a shot and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. We didn’t need another one, so I technically haven’t run out of challenges yet. So we’ll still go with that. But you’ve got to give your team a chance. If it’s close, you’ve got nothing to lose. We’ll keep continuing to give it a shot.”
On Roman Kimball’s tough start, Ty Good coming in and backing him up with a good outing
“Roman wasn’t his normal self today. He just fell behind hitters, just about every hitter. And then when he did, he had to throw the ball right down the middle, and they hit a couple homers off him. So he’ll learn from it, he’ll adjust. Sometimes these mounds, when we go to teams that have turf mounds, it’s easier for some guys to make the adjustment than others. But he’ll be fine. We have a lot of confidence in him.”
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“Ty Good came in and really stabilized the game. He gave our offense a chance to kind of relax a little bit and get back into trying to score runs. So I thought Ty Good was very, very good again tonight.”
Assessing the Kimball-Good combination through three weekends
“I think it gives us a chance to win. So far every time we’ve done it, it’s given us a chance to win. I think the only game we didn’t was a 2-1 game against arguably the best pitcher in the country at Arkansas. So I think it’s a good combination, and again, we just want to see how many innings we can get out of the combination of the two. Didn’t quite get as many innings as we wanted to tonight. But the guys all picked each other up and still had a great game.”
On Talmadge LeCroy’s big night
“He seems to be energized out there in the middle of the infield. He’s made some good swing adjustments, he’s shortened his swing some. And he’s playing great baseball right now.”
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On Cole Messina’s five-RBI game, what’s working so well for him right now
“We seem to have a lot of hitters right now that are hitting their stride and finding their best version of themselves. It’s the right time to do it, it’s the right time in the season to do it. Just want to continue to see guys really master what makes them good and then you put it all together and you get a good offense.”
On the job the bullpen did after Good exited
“We needed to protect Gainey so that he could bounce back this weekend. Had we thrown Gainey any more tonight, he would not have been available the rest of the weekend. Same thing with Marlatt, we wanted to use all of our bullpen guys based on the score of the game and the way that it would allow us to bring them all back. So the key was minimizing their pitches.”
