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COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 15, 2019Erik BakichKarl KauffmannBlake NelsonJimmy KerrOmaha, Nebraska Michigan - 5, Texas Tech - 3. ERIK BAKICH: Pitching defense, timely hitting seems to be the recipe of the postseason, and I thought we got a great start from Karl Kauffmann, pitched extremely well, gave us a quality start, outside of a two-run home run that I thought was a good pitch, a breaking ball down, he just got the head out and got it up out of the park. I thought he was great, gave us everything we needed. And then with Jeff Criswell coming in, getting the save was huge, and him fielding his position on that chopper in the ninth was a big play because that would have -- could have put the go-ahead run on base. But the defense was good today, and then the timely hitting, the two-out RBIs today, the 3 spot in the third inning, Jimmy's bases clearing -- two-run triple followed by Blake Nelson's two-out RBI, that was the difference of the game, and those are the types of games we've been playing a lot lately where the margin is small and comes down to a pitch. Our guys did a great job. They're loose. They're confident, and they're playing aggressive. Q. Karl, there wasn't much difference in your results each time through the lineup. What was the key to your consistency, I guess, in getting them out even though they maybe had a plan against you? KARL KAUFFMANN: First off that's a really good lineup they've got over there, 1 through 9. Speed, power, very well-balanced. After we kind of played them in March, we learned, came out here with the approach we had to minimize their opportunities and just limit the mistakes. Even today they made me pay for every mistake I made. So just minimize their opportunities and just go right after them and let the defense work, and it was nice having to jump out to that 4-0 lead, too. Never going to complain with that. Q. Jimmy, did you know that that was your first triple in more than two years? And kind of take us through the at-bat? JIMMY KERR: I did know that, actually. Actually I knew it was my first of the year. No, I mean, guys did a great job setting the tone, getting on base, and our two-strike approach as a team, choke up on the barrel, put it in play and make something happen and just got a pitch that I was able to put something in play on. We had guys on base all day, good at-bats throughout the lineup and that allowed us to get a 4-spot early. Q. Blake, I think you were kind of struggling a little bit as the season kind of came to a close, but it really seemed like you were locked in today. Came with a few hard hit balls and what turned out to be the game-winning single. What kind of mindset did you take going into this? Was there something in Micah Dallas that you could lock in on or just a matter of a good day? BLAKE NELSON: I mean, the last couple of weeks have been really good. He's pitched me well. I don't think my approach really has changed. I just think I didn't try to do too much, just tried to make the moment really smaller than what it was, stayed short, stay in tempo and try to put a barrel on the ball, and that's what I was able to do. Q. Karl, you've gone more than seven innings in your last four starts. What's it like being able to go deep into games and carry your team and not having to rely on the bullpen as much? KARL KAUFFMANN: Yeah, I was kind of focused with Coach Fetter going into the year was to just keep the pitch count low and go as deep into games as possible, minimizing other teams' opportunities and free passes and really just trying to get weak contact early. It's been a big focus and something where things are just starting to click, I guess, and it's good to see. Q. Karl, can you talk about your defense playing behind you and how that helped you as a pitcher today? KARL KAUFFMANN: Yeah, it's been incredible the whole year, throughout it all, having KO up the middle, Blomgren playing with a broken finger, Nelly over there doing his thing, and the outfield play has been phenomenal. That's allowed me to -- we talk about getting deep into games, those guys are what allow me to get deep into games. Just pitching to contact and letting the defense work, so all the credit to them. Q. Jimmy, it's your guys' first time here in 35 years. How were you able to handle the atmosphere? What did you think of the atmosphere, and just why was this team able to maintain its poise despite being a first-timer? JIMMY KERR: The atmosphere was awesome. That's the first time any of us have probably played in front of 24,000 people. But I think we had a lot of -- it's helped us a lot to have the Big Ten tournament here, especially playing Nebraska twice in that tournament, a lot of Nebraska fans showed out. I think we had maybe like 11, 12,000 Nebraska fans the last couple games against Nebraska. So we know what it's like to be in this stadium and we know what it's like to be in a hostile environment, so I think that's prepared us for this week. Q. Jimmy, kind of something that Blake touched on earlier, having faced Micah Dallas earlier this year, do you think that gave you guys a little bit of an edge getting to see him a second time, and what was the plan against him? How were you able to have success against him early in the game? JIMMY KERR: Yeah, I think as a team we did a pretty good job of laying off his slider low. He has a lot of success getting teams to chase with that slider. He throws the ball on time, so 1 through 9 did a pretty good job of seeing it up and staying on pitches we could drive. Q. This is for any of the players. Obviously it's been a while since your program has been to the College World Series. Did Barry Larkin talk to you guys? I believe he was in town the other night. BLAKE NELSON: (Indiscernible) to kind of get us prepared for the week. I think it was two weeks before the regional, he sent a little clip to us trying to get us ready for the super regional and wishing us luck and said that he was following us, so that was pretty cool. It got us fired up to go against UCLA and eventually get here. Q. Blake and Jimmy, I know you guys were clearly the heroes offensively today, but defensively, too, you guys played a really solid game, zero errors, and I know when you were in Lubbock defensive gaps were kind of the story of those games. There was a couple miscues against UCLA in Los Angeles, I know one of them you were able to beat the batter home, but you guys got a run off an error today. How does the defense coming together just play a big part in this NCAA tournament run? JIMMY KERR: Yeah, so apart from that Saturday game against UCLA, we've been playing our best defense of the year this whole tournament, and a lot of credit goes to Coach Schnabel working with us all throughout the fall and into the winter. He's one of the best infield coaches in the nation, no doubt. He's got us all to the point where we were communicating loudly, playing aggressive, only making aggressive mistakes, and especially being comfortable in the moment because we trust our training. BLAKE NELSON: I think at this point in the year every team that's playing against us is really good, so we can't allow them to have free bases. As you guys can see, our last, I don't know, six or seven games have been very close. Limiting the amount of opportunities the other team has has been a focal point for us as a defense and just trying to focus in and make every play. Q. Kind of looking at Karl's performance, he's been very good the last few weeks. What's your assessment of his stuff and his performance today? ERIK BAKICH: Well, he's a mature pitcher. He's a junior. He advance feel for three pitches. He throws a ton of strikes. He didn't walk anyone today and that's his bread and butter. You know, early in career, he was more enamored with trying to get more velocity and now he has really leveraged that turbo-sinking-arm-side-run fastball because it just gets off the barrel and he generates so much ground ball contact, that's why the Colorado Rockies drafted him. He's a great ground ball pitcher. And so for him to just fill up the strike zone with three pitches in any count, in any location, he's just tough to hit, especially with the ball moving that much. He's just been dialed in, and he and Coach Fetter have put together a really nice pitch plan, and it's a mature guy who's able to execute it, and it's been a huge spark for us these last few weeks. Q. I know you use Criswell a lot out of the bullpen in the super regional opener. Was that kind of plan coming into this, too, with how spread out this format is, and I imagine you probably liked what you saw there. Just take us through your thought process on your pitching plan. ERIK BAKICH: Yeah, we thought going in we were going to not save anybody. The way we've been approaching all these tournaments is we're just going to worry about Game 1 and do whatever we have to do in Game 1 and worry about Game 2 in Game 2. So Criswell and Henry were both the two guys in the pen. And we were hoping Karl would do exactly what he did, get us to the eighth inning. We had Criswell, we had Henry both available, and just with the way the tournament is, where there's days off, it is a great matchup for our strong starting pitching that can also double as relievers. Q. Erik, you mentioned the two strike inning in your opening statement, but it seems like all the big momentum plays today that helped you win this ballgame came with two strikes in the count. What was the approach today, and is that maybe something that's a thread throughout the season that you guys have been able to make plays with two strikes? ERIK BAKICH: We lost a series at Ohio State and we had a bunch of backwards K's, and that was an opportunity, a teaching moment with our team to really dial in our two-strike approach, and our guys just got a whole lot grittier, a whole lot tougher with two strikes. They committed to choking up and just really doing a good job of expanding the zone with two strikes, and it wasn't about taking their Twitter swing, it was about being ugly productive. Sometimes you've got to stick your butt out and foul one off just to get to the next pitch. And so our guys are doing a great job of battling and fighting with two strikes just to put the barrel on the ball because this is college baseball. Good things happen when you can force mistakes, and you saw that happen with the extra run that we got that proved to be a huge insurance run there in the eighth or ninth, whatever it was. Q. Coach, how does Karl's ability to go deep into games change the makeup of this team? ERIK BAKICH: I think any starter that gives you quality starts, you look at the innings Karl has thrown, we were hoping -- we thought if we were going to have an Omaha-caliber team we'd need 300 innings out of our three starters, and I don't know what Karl is at, but he's somewhere 115 innings on the year, 110, whatever it is. He's just been a workhorse. So it's been a great tone setter. He started out the Saturday starter and has moved his way to the No. 1 slot, and just a great tone setter. He really gives us an opportunity every single time he pitches, and he's had an awesome year this year, so we wouldn't be here without him. Q. When you guys lost that first Big Ten tournament game and you kind of felt like your season is on the brink at that point, and then even in Corvallis when you guys lost the late lead in the winner's bracket game and had to play the elimination game, did you foresee this team getting to this point with all maybe the late-season adversity you guys have had to deal with? ERIK BAKICH: Well, the mindset when we lost the first Big Ten tournament game and when we lost that game in Corvallis couldn't have been more opposite. When we lost that first game in the Big Ten tournament, our guys were pressing, they were squeezing it, they were puckered up. We weren't playing free. We weren't loose. And we needed some authentic moment to happen on the field. For a program who hasn't been here and hasn't navigated its way through the postseason, we needed something to happen to ignite a hot streak, and that was the walk-off winner in Game 2 of the Big Ten tournament. And at first it was like a feeling of relief, and then it was like, no, we've got this, we can do this, and we worked our way through the loser's bracket. We didn't win the Big Ten tournament, but it didn't matter because we had confidence and we had belief, and once we got into the tournament, the 64-field tournament, we didn't care if we were one of the last four in or one of the first four in. We just had a different mindset. Earlier in the season if we would have blown that ninth-inning lead, I don't know if we come back and respond the next day and put up 17 runs or whatever we put up. But that's all confidence. That's all belief. Total credit to the kids for just being able to get up off the mat and get back in the fight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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