Everything Paul Mainieri said after South Carolina was swept by Clemson on Sunday

Following an 8-2 loss to No. 13 Clemson on Sunday, South Carolina head coach Paul Mainieri met with the media. Here’s everything he had to say after the Gamecocks were swept by the Tigers this weekend.

Opening statement

“Well, those were three really tough, hard-fought games. All three games were like one-run games going into the eighth or ninth inning. So they were very competitive, hard-fought games, and we came up short in all three of them. I know how much it means to South Carolina people, South Carolina fans. I feel bad that we didn’t come through for them. But there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, except for keep improving and working on the things we need to work on. There were so many bright spots this weekend, particularly Jake McCoy and Dylan Eskew — the starting pitching performances we got out of them — and the relief performance by Brandon Stone.

“There’s a lot to be hopeful for, but obviously, we’re going to need to hit more than we hit this weekend. Got to give some support to the pitchers. You don’t want them thinking that any one little mistake is going to cost them the ballgame. But they’ve been up to the occasion, pitched great, and it gives me optimism for the future. But we just got to figure out the hitting and get a little more thump there and into the lineup and coach them up a little bit better. We got a lot of games left.”

You mentioned looking for a little more thump in the lineup. But when you have three games like that, what do you do? How do you approach the next game?

“I thought it hurt us not having Kennedy in the lineup and also Talmadge. I don’t know if you can remember back this far, but in the second inning of the first game of the year, there was a ball in the dirt, and (LeCroy) actually suffered a fracture of his thumb. So he’s got a pretty significant break in his right thumb. He’s shown so much courage playing through it. He’s been able to throw the ball okay. It’s really bothered him the most just swinging the bat. And then, when Kennedy threw the base runner out at the plate, even though he was tagging the runner with his left hand, the glove hand, of course, somehow his right hand got in there, and the runner whacked into his right hand and really created a lot of discomfort and pain in his hand yesterday. So I didn’t even know that his hand was hurting that bad yesterday during the game. He never said anything, but he obviously wasn’t swinging the bat as well as he could think. He struck out three times yesterday. But he couldn’t play today. It was so sore. I don’t know what the answer there is, he wants to play through it. Hopefully, it’ll heal as time goes on, and we’ll see. He’s going to get it X-rayed again tomorrow to make sure that the break isn’t any worse than it’s been. We didn’t even know about it being broken until probably after this seventh or eighth game of the year. He never said anything. I mean, I knew his hand was hurting, but nobody had any inkling that he had a fracture in his thumb.

“And then Kennedy, what happened was on Friday night’s game, when he scored on Talmadge is double and he slid head first into home plate, he hit his left shoulder really hard onto the ground, and we don’t really know what the significance of it is. Just been real sore. Probably shouldn’t have played him yesterday, but he really wanted to play. He wasn’t swinging the bat the way that he could yesterday, either. Obviously, both he and Talmadge had those critical at-bats in the first inning of the game yesterday, but they just weren’t physically capable of swinging the way that they can. And then today, Kennedy didn’t even take batting practice, and so we had to keep him out. So yeah, we’re a little beat up when you know two of your main hitters are out or not being able to play at full strength. It’s going to have an impact on you. We don’t have that kind of depth of hitters where you lose two guys like that, and you just say, ‘Okay, next man up.’ No, guys are trying, but we’re gonna have to evaluate and just kind of see what would be the best thing. I’ll huddle up with Monte (Lee) and try to come up with the best possible solution.”

You mentioned the impact on the fanbase being swept by Clemson. What is the message that maybe you might have about not panicking with a lot of season left and how you guys might be able to recover from a weekend like this?

“Well, I told our players after the game that there’s not anything we can do about the Clemson series. It’s in the books. You can’t go back and replay them all. I’m sure that there’s going to be a lot of noise out there in the public, you know, disappointed about what happened this weekend. But I feel bad about it, believe me. I know how much it means to everybody. Our kids did the best they could. I credit Clemson, they came through with some clutch hits. They made some big pitches against us. When the games were on the line. I told you this from the get-go: Your season is defined by how you do in the close ballgames. And this weekend, we didn’t come through in the close games. When you think about it, every game was in the balance going into the eighth or ninth inning, and we just didn’t do what it took, and Clemson did.

“I can sit up here and tell you how badly I feel for South Carolina people that care so much about what happens against Clemson. I feel awful. It matters to me, believe me, as much as it matters to anybody else. All I can tell you is we’re just going to keep working hard every day to improve. And I told our team that one thing that has been kind of a hallmark of my teams through the years is that we may have some struggles early, but eventually, we hit a stride and start improving. I want us to be a better team in April and May than we are in February and March. We’re going to analyze every aspect of it. Hopefully, Kennedy will be back, and hopefully, Talmadge can fight through that. Hopefully, we’ll keep pitching well and playing good defense, and doing the things that help us win games. And hopefully, we’re just going to keep getting better and better and better as the year goes on.

“I hope they don’t lose faith because of a short-term failure like this. I know it matters to our kids, obviously, it matters to our staff. We’ll show up Tuesday, and we’ll try to right the ship and keep working hard.”

How do you evaluate the catcher position right now after being concerned about it going into the year?

“Yeah, I’m very concerned about it. I mean, obviously, we didn’t play well behind home plate tonight. Past balls and not blocking a ball with a runner on third, you know, throwing a guy out on a pitch out. I mean, those are all little things that add up if you don’t do them. I was going to catch Bakes, but then when Kennedy couldn’t play, I wanted to try to keep both their bats in. Kaufer has been swinging the bat pretty good. Although tonight he didn’t, he had a couple of called third strikes. But I wanted to DH Kaufer and catch Bakes. But then, when Kennedy couldn’t play, I put Bakes in the outfield. He’s played a little bit of outfield before, and I thought he might provide a spark with the bat. But when that all happened, I just decided to put Woita in against the left-hander and see what he could do. He had one big hit, but couple of other not so great at-bats.”

Do you feel like, just in general, with the offensive struggles, it’s like a combination of different things, like the mental side, Clemson’s pitching being really good, and just the struggles at the plate?

“You are who you are. I mean, the guys are trying the best that they can. But there’s guys struggling. I don’t mean to single players out, but guys that had really good falls and even good preseasons have struggled thus far during the spring. Hitting a baseball is the most difficult thing to do in sports. We all know that. All we can do is just keep working hard with them and encouraging them. I can tell you this: I’ve never seen a coach work any harder with players than Monte Lee does with our hitters. So it’s not for a lack of effort. Everybody’s working extremely hard. We’re going to analyze it all. 15 strikeouts in one game is just, you’re not going to win a lot of games doing that. Then at one point, I think we had two hits into the eighth inning. I mean, you’re not going to win a lot of games with that kind of production. So we’ve got to find it somehow, somewhere. And that’s all I can tell you right now. I mean, right now, sitting here in front of you, I don’t have the answer of what the magic wand is to have our guys hit better, but we’re going to analyze everything and keep working.”

Coach, when you go back and look at the games on film, the runners left on base, is that something that you think will stand out to you? If so, how do you plan to fix that going forward?

“Well, it’s the nature of the game. It’s funny that in today’s modern era of baseball, everybody says on-base percentage is much more important than RBIs. Well, last I checked, the real number that matters on the scoreboard is how many runs you scored compared to the other team. So, yeah, we didn’t get many clutch hits this whole weekend. I mean, neither did Clemson, really. I mean, I think the first night, they had three clutch hits, and we had one. It was a difference in the ballgame yesterday. We didn’t have any clutch hits. We had a solo home run, but they didn’t have much either, until the center fielder got the hit in the late innings, the two-run inning off of McCoy in the sixth inning. And then tonight, really until the very end when they got a few good hits in clutch situations, and we had a couple. I emphasize it. We all emphasize it. But it takes something special out of a player to rise up in those situations. Petry’s doing it. He came through with the big hit. Woita’s come through with some big hits. We just got to get more guys doing it. That’s all. We just got to keep emphasizing it. I’m going to put the pressure on the players to recognize the situation when they need to rise up. But it’s the difference in teams, and it’s a difference between winning and losing is who performs in the clutch. You give some credit to the other teams’ pitching, but you can’t give too much credit. I mean, you’re going to face good pitching; you just got to rise up and do it. It’s one of those things in the sport of baseball that’s hard to figure sometimes, but we do need to get more base runners, too. I don’t know how many base runners we had tonight, but it didn’t seem like we had a lot.”

I know you said you don’t have the answers right now offensively, but you did say at the beginning that you saw a lot of positives and a lot of optimism for you going forward. Did you see anything positive offensively for y’all to build upon going forward?

“Yeah, Ethan Petry. Woita came through with the big hit there. Trying to remember any other positives about tonight about the offense.”

Well, how about the weekend as a whole?

“Well, not really. Nathan Hall. Nathan did some good things again. But you got to get more than a third of your lineup performing. And I mean, there’s a lot of 0-fors on that box score. There has been all weekend. So we just got to get more out of each guy. We got to get runners on base, we got to get them over, and then we got to figure out a way to get them in too. It’s one of those things. It can be fleeting, you know, and then all of a sudden, it starts to click. And hopefully, we have the ability to do it. All we can do is put the guys out there who we think are the best guys and encourage them. Hopefully, they’ll come through more frequently than they have been this weekend.”

The losses aside, what did you think of the three games, three nights, three cities?

“Yeah, I thought it was great. What a great, neat setup. People in Greenville were awesome. Beautiful ballpark, a raucous crowd. Clemson’s not all that much fun to go to for an opposing team, but it was awesome to see the spirit of their school and the way their fans rallied behind their team. And I felt wonderful tonight. I was really concerned whether or not people would come out tonight after us losing the first two games and the temperatures dropping, but they showed up. It was awesome. I just wish we would have rewarded them with a win. But we’re not going to give up. I can just assure everybody we’re not going to give up. We’re going to keep working. You’re going to lose baseball games during the season. It just hurts a little bit more when you lose them to Clemson, obviously. But we can’t do anything about it right now. But the whole weekend, I can see why the rivalry is so cool and what everybody told me about it. I love the idea of the three different ballparks. And I’m already looking forward to next year.”

With the two changes to the left side of the infield, was it more about wanting to see what Jordan Carrion and Will Tippett could do? Or was it more about what Henry Kaczmar and KJ Scobey haven’t been able to do lately?

“Little of both. Kaczmar is kind of baffling us right now because he was awesome all fall, and he was great in the preseason. Right now, he’s just in a rut, a really bad rut. I knew we were facing a tough left-handed pitcher, so I figured Tippett’s been working hard. Tippett has some sneaky power, and he could run into one quickly, too. He came up one time with a couple guys on base earlier in the game, you know, I had visions of him connecting, and all of a sudden, we get three runs on the board. But it didn’t happen.

“As far as Scobey goes, he’s freshman, and he does some good things, and then he has some moments that he’s not too good at. And he’s been struggling with some off-speed pitches. I just thought Jordan Carrion has been working so hard. He’s been doing some really good things. And I just thought those kids deserved a chance to see if they could spark us tonight. And I thought Jordan Carrion had some good at-bats. He hit that one ball really hard. I wish he had Scobey’s strength. It would have carried over the fence. But he hit it about as good as he could. He played good defense. Tippett played good defense. So we didn’t really sacrifice anything defensively at either position. But that was why. A little bit of both.”

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