Everything Paul Mainieri said after South Carolina's 11-4 loss on Saturday

Following an 11-4 loss to Mississippi State on Saturday, South Carolina head coach Paul Mainier spoke to the media. Here’s everything he had to say.

Mississippi State’s reliever Chase Hungate seemed to be the difference in the game. What made him so effective against you guys?

“Well, by the time he came in the game, we were already well behind. He just threw the ball over the plate. We just didn’t get a lot of good swings. We just had a tough day on the mound today. Our starting pitching performance was very poor. Poor control, and then we fall behind in counts. When they threw it over the plate in hitters’ counts with the wind gailing out, they hit five home runs. So you can’t be pitching behind in the count, and if you walk batters and then give up a home run, it all adds up. It was just a poor pitching performance on our part today.

“We had a good chance in the first inning there and didn’t capitalize offensively. And then we were in a hole after that, just because it was just not our day today on the mound. We’ve been pitching a little bit better than that. Today was just a rough day. Dug ourselves a big hole, and just couldn’t get out of it, despite the efforts of Kaczmar, which was awesome.”

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After Henry Kaczmar hit two home runs in his first two at-bats, he decided to bunt there in the seventh. He said the third baseman was shifted over a little bit to where he felt good about bunting there in that situation. What did you kind of think of that?

“Well, it didn’t work. So he did it without talking to me about it. I wish he would have asked me. I would have told him, I don’t think we should do that, especially off a pitcher that has the delivery that Hungate has. You kind of need your left-handers to hit that guy, because he’s more difficult on right-handed hitters. But he practices that every day. And I guess he felt that the third baseman was playing way over. But for that to work, he’s got to get it past the pitcher. So he obviously didn’t bunt it hard enough. I would have preferred him to swing the bat, but he just made a decision there. And hey, I’m not going to second-guess him. He practices it every day for when they put the shift on him. Just probably wasn’t the right time.”

It’s been kind of a revolving door in the top two spots in the batting order. Kaczmar’s been performing pretty consistently in the nine-hole. Do you just like him there? Or do you think about moving him back up again?

“I’m thinking about everything to get us going offensively. But, yeah, I thought about it about a week ago and just decided to leave him there because he’s been swinging the bat so well in the nine-hole. I don’t know. You’re trying to figure out the right combination, and it’s like a fleeting thing. Beau has a great day yesterday, and then comes up in the first inning with the runner on third and one out and strikes out. So, they’re humans, you know, they’re not robots. So you just got to pick and choose what you think is the right combination on a particular day and go with it. So we’ll see.”

Do you have a starting pitcher in mind for the series finale tomorrow?

“Not yet. I haven’t even talked to Terry about it.”

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