Everything Paul Mainieri said after South Carolina's 3-2 win over Ole Miss

Following South Carolina’s 3-2 win over No. 11 Ole Miss on Thursday, head coach Paul Mainieri spoke to the media. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“Well, goes without saying that was a great win for us tonight. Badly needed it. Just so proud of the guys for the way that they’ve kept their chins up and kept battling hard. I get a lot of questions sometimes, ‘How do you keep guys going?’ You just got to keep going forward. You know, just keep trudging forward.

“Obviously, the key to the game was this big fellow sitting next to me. He was in complete command tonight. I’ve told you this many times that anybody who thinks pitching is 90 percent of the game is largely underestimating its importance. He completely dominated the game today. Gave his team a chance. We got a couple of big hits and great play, great defense, and it was a wonderful win for us.”

You had the bullpen going in the later innings tonight. Was there ever any thought to pulling Brandon Stone? Or did you know that he was going to go nine innings the whole way?

“I wish I knew he was going to go nine. I was trying to recall. Of course, I’ve been gone for three years, but I’m trying to remember the last time I had a pitcher go nine innings in a game. I mean, you don’t see that very often, but he’s so efficient. I think he only threw like 25 pitches out of the strike zone tonight. Most of his pitches were strikes. When a guy is ahead of the hitters constantly, and you know, the only time he got hurt was when he threw off-speed pitches and left them up in the zone. Those were the only balls of the two home runs. And I’m not sure he gave up a hit on his fastball, to be honest with you. His fastball was sinking and but it was in the strike zone the whole night, and it had good velocity.

“Listen, where we positioned the guy was very important. When Brandon pitches, he’s not going to strike out a ton of batters, but he’s going to make them pound it into the ground. And sometimes they hit a little bit hard, but into the ground. And if you’re in the right positions, then we got a chance to make the plays, and the guys all made the plays tonight. That first batter in the ninth inning was a little uncharacteristic. I wish Scobey would have come and gotten that ball, because it went straight down off the bat. But I think it kind of surprised him, coming from a left-handed hitter that way. And it just kind of took a little tricky hop on him.

“I was really tempted to go with Crowther against Furniss, because in his splits, he’s much better against right-handed pitching than left-handed pitching. But if I’d have gone to Crowther, I didn’t know if Mike would have brought one of his right-handed hitters off the bench. So I liked the matchup of Brandon against Furniss more than I liked Crowther there against a right-handed hitter. And I knew he had hit into three double plays this year. So again, if we had him positioned correctly, which I think we did with Jordan a little bit more in the hole there, and I knew that Furniss was not a great runner, that we had a chance to earn another double play. And sure enough, we got it, and that was a huge lift for us to get that double play in the ninth inning.

“So I was hopeful he’d go nine, and his pitch count was so low. I did go over and ask him after the eighth inning, ‘Have you ever gone nine innings before?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah, but at a much higher pitch count than this 130 pitches or so.’ He felt so fresh that there was no way I was taking the ball from him.”

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Did you sense anything different about Stone in terms of his demeanor since that was as far as he’s gone, or what did you sense from him those last few innings?

“Honestly, I have loved that kid all year. He hasn’t pitched poorly all year, whether we used him out of the bullpen or as a starter. He’s had some bad luck, you know, the first inning against Oklahoma. There were a lot of seeing-eye hits, that type of thing. Just some bad karma for him, you know, if that’s the right word, but just some bad luck stuff. And even when I used him out of the pen against Tennessee, when we had the lead, they HIT a couple of sliders for home runs late in the game, but he pitched a great seventh inning. And then even after the home runs, he pitched well. He’s a winner. There’s no question in my mind about it. And tonight, I just think he was very determined right from the get-go.

I get asked a lot, why Brandon Stone? Or maybe it was Derek Scott who asked me that in the pregame radio show, and I just gave a one-word answer: Strikes. I mean, the three games over in College Station, our starting pitchers didn’t throw strikes right out of the gate. Eskew was able to wiggle his way out of it, because that’s the way he does it. But Becker and Jake were not able to. Now, tomorrow, hopefully, Jake’s going to be more in the strike zone. I have a feeling that he is. He’s very determined tomorrow as well to throw strikes. But I just thought Brandon would come out the first inning. I didn’t know if they’d hit him or not, but I knew he’d throw the ball over the plate, and he had a pretty quick first inning there. I think the batter tried a bunt, or we had a swinging bunt or something, but Gavin Braland made a couple plays out there in front of the plate, and we made the plays in the infield for him, and it just gave the team such a lift to have a 1-2-3 first inning and not have to stand out there and watch pitchers walk batters. He just seemed like he kept getting stronger and stronger as the game went on.”

How did you assess the way you guys approached the game going up against a pitcher like Hunter Elliott tonight?

“Well, to be honest with you, I was surprised seeing him in person, because I remember watching him a couple of years ago. He was a hard thrower. I mean, he was throwing 94-95, it seemed like. At least when I would watch the games. But he had an arm surgery, and he just has a different style of pitching. Now, he was topping out at 90, but he was throwing a really, really good changeup, and we had a tough time adjusting to his changeup. But Carrion swung through two, but then, with two strikes on him, put the ball in play and allowed the run to score. I didn’t think we’d win 1-0, but I was just happy to see us get a lead and feel good about the early part of the game.

“And then, Nathan came through with a big hit. And then the young kid Braland came through with a clutch two-strike hit. We were able to score three runs. We had a chance to kind of break it open there. Carrion was up with second and third. But we just couldn’t get a hit right there. Kept the game close, and Mitch Sanford hit the home run to make it a one-run game. I love Mitch. He played for me for two years at LSU. I don’t know if you all know that, but my last two years at LSU, he played for me, and I love the kid, and recruited him and everything. I wasn’t very happy about him hitting that home run there, to be honest with you. I hope that’s the last one I see out of this weekend. But I gotta tell you, when they brought that Morris kid in, wow, that kid was awesome. I mean it, he wasn’t just a hard thrower. He had a great curveball, cutter. I mean, threw all strikes. Who hits that guy? I mean, he pretty much dominated us once he came into the game. So I’m glad we got those runs early.”

“I know you mentioned it to us the other day about why Stone didn’t get the pitch at Texas A&M. Did you ever get a chance to talk with him about why that was? And what was his reaction when you told him that he was starting tonight?

“Well, he wanted to pitch the other day. But I know I said this before, and you all think I’m crazy. I thought we pitched great the other day. I really did, and I liked the way that the guys that we used. Eskew was great for three innings. I thought Jarvis was a really good matchup against them, and he pitched great for four innings. Sweeney came in, pitched great for two batters in the eighth inning, and then gave up a hit and a home run, and then went out there in the ninth inning and had bad luck on the first batter. I hate to rehash it again, but I thought he threw good. It was just that we played a really tough team in a tough environment, with the wind galing out. And then I thought that Caleb Jones came in and threw the ball the way I would have hoped that he would. I mean, Brandon’s Achilles heel this year has been giving up the home run — the two to Tennessee, and, you know, a couple of other games.

“And tonight, fortunately, the win wasn’t galing out, but he still gave up two solo home runs. But I told him, you know, he was chomping at the bit to come into the game the other day. And I just told him, you know, look, I was really debating between starting Sweeney tonight or Brandon, and once I knew that I was going to use Sweeney there at the end of the game, I knew that I had to start Brandon on Thursday. I knew he would be the starting pitcher tonight, and I told him during the game that, ‘Look, I know you want to pitch, but if I don’t use you today, you’re going to be starting on Thursday.’ So I think he was excited about the start. And after getting walked off twice, having a really bad game and getting walked off twice, we needed a leader out there tonight, and he was a leader. I knew he would be. He was a tremendous leader, coming out, pounding the strike zone and getting us off to a good start, and then, of course, the rest is history. But I didn’t expect him to go nine, but I expected him to give us a good quality start of at least five or six innings.”

Did you hold your breath at all when Nathan Hall was rounding first to try to stretch that opening hit into a double?

“Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I stood out with him in centerfield yesterday at practice, and I watched how gracefully he does going after fly balls. After every time he would do it, I’d ask him how it felt, and he says, ‘I feel great. I feel great.’ So I knew he was going to be fine today, and you know, it’s just awesome to have him in there. I told him yesterday, look, if you can at least jog, I’m going to DH you tomorrow. Okay, so at least you can jog to the bases. But once we started practice yesterday, he was galloping after fly balls, and I just felt that unless something happened to him overnight, something was going to be wrong. So when he hit that ball, I was hoping he tried for two. I know Mitch Sanford’s got pretty good arm, and I knew that it’s an awkward wall out there down the line where the ball kicks in. So the left fielder didn’t even have a long throw, but he went for it, and I was glad he did. And that was a big play. And then Kaczmar hitting the fly ball to right field against a tough left-hander, that was a big play to advance him. And like I said, Carrion putting the ball in play with two strikes, got us that early run.”

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