	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP REGIONALS: BATON ROUGE

June 4, 2016

Matt Riser

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

MATT RISER: Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious, their center fielders made two nice plays, the play he made on the line drive up the middle, I thought he was going to be down there for two RBIs, take the lead. They come in, get the lead-off single, we get the passed ball and we had the error at shortstop and they did a good job of having some situational at-bats. He drops a guy at third base with less than two.

So right now, you look at it, first six innings, they had the one big inning with three runs because they made the plays and we haven't so far.

Q. Have you ever had to game plan for anything close to this, ever?
MATT RISER: Very similar. Felt like it when we were at the box last time during the season, we had the three-hour rain delay. We've had a six-hour, six-and-a-half-hour rain delay this year as well with a doubleheader. We played one inning and Mother Nature set in with her lightning, and the rain came and we finished the doubleheader I think at one o'clock in the morning.

I guess it's somewhat similar. But at this point, we've been sitting around the hotel all day and trying to figure out what's going to happen and just glad that we have a decision and we can go refocus for tomorrow.

Q. Obviously not an ideal situation, but can you talk a little about what some of the advantages might be of a situation like this?
MATT RISER: Yeah, the situation is what it is with the weather, Mother Nature is always undefeated, we know that. But both teams are in the same boat, having to deal with the same situation. They had to pull their starter. We had a reliever we just brought in.

I guess maybe the one good thing on this is tomorrow starts a new day so, from a pitching standpoint, we can kind of refocus. It's easy to bring a left-hander back in who is already in the game, Robinson. Won't be a big deal bringing him back-to-back days from that standpoint. We don't have to wait around for three more hours to see if we can go with him or not.

So if there's one advantage to it, I think that's that. It shortens the game for us. I think with our club, I think we do a good job of -- we can get some momentum going, so if we can jump out and score early tomorrow, we can ride that three-inning ballgame.

Q. You mentioned the series where you started the game and you had a six-and-a-half-hour rain delay. The guys seem pretty relaxed. Did it help them that they went through that a couple months ago?
MATT RISER: I don't know what helps that bunch. They go to their own drum there. Keep it loose. At this point in time, with as much weather as we've had, it's just a matter of tell us where and when, and we'll show up and we'll go. They do a good job. There's not a whole lot else to do in this scenario besides have some fun.

Look, you're playing in a regional, and you want to stay locked in and focused but there's only so much time you can do that and that's on the field. So when you're in between games, waiting on the rain to finish up, have a little bit of fun.

Q. Matt, did you like the approach your hitters had against Blake Fox today? And him maybe not being able to pitch tomorrow presumably, that might help your hitters?
MATT RISER: Yeah, I thought we had a pretty decent approach on him. I know we only got three hits through six innings but like you said, we've hit a couple balls well and got a couple runs left on the board there because they played some good defense.

Obviously you always want more out of your staff but we know what they got in the bullpen, as well. They do have some right-handers there in the bullpen and I think one lefty left, freshman left hander left, and we know he can run a little bit. I think we can put some pressure on them from that standpoint.

Q. You mentioned coming out tomorrow and starting, you have three innings; do you hope to get some momentum? Is there a positive you can take away from this delay today?
MATT RISER: Yeah, that's exactly it. There's not a whole lot else to do. We talked about it out there before they banged the whole entire day for us. Three-inning game, it's a new game. Whatever's happened so far, the good thing is you almost like have half time so to speak, re-gameplan and go out there and play the second half, and that's basically what this is going to be.

We've lost the first six innings but still a lot of baseball left to play. College baseball, three innings, especially with a three-run deficit, there's a lot that can happen in a very, very short time.

Q. Starting at 9:00 A.M., how did that affect the team's preparation?
MATT RISER: I don't think it did. We did it in the conference tournament and we were 2-0 in the conference tournament, same thing, rain came, we got moved to the 9:00am game. We handled it well. I thought we handled today well. Only thing was the one inning to this point. Nice thing is we'll be able to start at 11:00 tomorrow. We don't have to do it back-to-back days.

But I thought our guys handled it well from that standpoint. They did a good job of taking care of their routine, got breakfast this morning, got in the cages and got some stuff done, and they got ready to go.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297