|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 24, 2018Chris PollardJack LaboskyGriffin ConineDurham, North Carolina Duke - 6, Wake Forest - 2 CHRIS POLLARD: I am exhausted, and I did not play. I don't know how these guys were able to grind through that. That was an incredibly fatiguing game. But what a job by our bullpen. Just looking at the numbers, I think eight innings pitched, three hits, one walk, 13 or 14 strikeouts. Just an unbelievable job by our bullpen to keep us in the ballgame. We had a lot of opportunities we didn't capitalize, and finally we got a break late and made the most of it. Just very, very proud of the job by our bullpen. Q. Top of the 10th bases loaded, nobody out, you come up empty. That's a kick to the solar plexus. How were you able to maintain your composure and go back out and get a 1-2-3 and get back at it? GRIFFIN CONINE: Yeah, I think our bullpen really helped with that. Like you said, it's a crushing blow. You're looking to get at least one there, and we came up with none. But I think our bullpen was so electric and did a great job getting us back in the dugout that we weren't too worried. We knew they were going to keep the ballgame right where it was, which is what they did, and we were back in the dugout, I think we had a 1-2-3 inning, and we were right back in it, and then we were back trying to score more runs. I think you could chalk it up to our bullpen being elite and how well they pitched today. Q. What's the least amount of time you need to warm up? JACK LABOSKY: Probably around 10 pitches or so. I think it helps being at third making throws over and over. Yeah, I get ready pretty quick, and usually it's on short notice, too. Q. I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody warm up while they were on base. JACK LABOSKY: Yeah, that's what Mr. Baron said outside, too. He's not sure anyone has ever seen that in a baseball game. So I'm glad I'm the first, you know. Q. Jack, you've been here four years; what does the 40th win mean to you as far as that accomplishment? JACK LABOSKY: I think it just shows where the program has come from in the four years I've been here and under Coach Pollard's guidance. 40 wins is a big milestone. It's the mark of an elite program. I think getting that 40th win today, even though this game may not have meant as much in the ACC Tournament, it's one of those games where we could have came out and just kind of rolled over, let it happen, and just looked forward to tomorrow. But getting that 40th win, it's a big milestone for us as a team, and I think as a program going forward, it'll be looked back upon as a big milestone. Q. Jack or Griffin, more than 40 wins, you guys now have the opportunity to play in a semifinal on Saturday. How do you evaluate that chance and what it could mean to a season that's already set some records? GRIFFIN CONINE: Yeah, I think like Jack said, 40 is an awesome number, and it's real big for this program. But at the same time, we've got a lot more work to do. We're trying to win as many games as we can this tournament and end up hosting a regional. That's our next goal. And so 40 is nice, but at the same time, we're looking for 41, 42, as many as we can get. It's kind of just a quick milestone that you can enjoy for a day and then kind of move on to the next game, and that's what we're going to do. Q. Your coach echoed it, just talk about just gutting out through four hours out there in the heat today. It would have to be real taxing out there. GRIFFIN CONINE: Yeah, it was -- like he said, it was a grind. It was one of those games that was going pretty quick, actually. We were on pace for probably two and a half hours through nine, which is flying, and then it just kind of kept on going. But like I said, our bullpen made it real easy on us, I think. That game could have ended up being close to five if we got a game that's dragging or our bullpen is not doing a good job of being in the zone. But they kind of made it seem a lot quicker than it was, I think. We were back in the dugout so quick that we got to cool off, and I think that eventually helped our offense and helped us kind of stay in the moment and get the win. JACK LABOSKY: Yeah, earlier in the season if you've hung around, we've had a lot of four-hour ballgames. It's nothing real new. I think the difference today was it was a good fight the whole time, and that's kind of draining. Sometimes in a blowout one way or the other, those four-hour games, you can kind of lay back and sometimes you're not all locked in the whole time. With a game like this, 2-2, you're locked in the whole, and that's where most of the fatigue comes from, but I think we handled it real well. Q. Coach, I think you rolled out all four of your big bullpen guns here today. Obviously this game meant a lot for you guys even though it didn't mean anything for the ACC Tournament. Chasing that regional host thing, or would you have played it that way regardless? CHRIS POLLARD: No, we would not have. I don't know that in the absence of an opportunity to host that we would have pitched any of those guys. As much as we want to be playing on Saturday, our ultimate goal is to get to Omaha, and the best opportunity for us to do that is by playing baseball in Durham next week. We were careful to make sure that Ethan and Jack didn't do anything to prevent them from throwing tomorrow, so both those guys will be live for us tomorrow and ready to extend. You know this stuff as good as anybody. I'd be curious, I asked Ashley last night to research had an ACC team ever won 18 ACC games and not hosted a regional, and she could only come up with two times in the history of the ACC and the NCAA tournament that an 18-win ACC team had not hosted a regional, and now we have 19. I think we made a very strong statement today about our opportunity to be playing baseball in Durham next week. Q. I wanted to ask you about the format. You described the game as exhausting, a grind, and yet it played no bearing on whether you get to play on the weekend. Tomorrow's game with Louisville is everything. Coach Walter just said he thinks the format will be changed. How do you feel about it? CHRIS POLLARD: Well, there is -- when you go to 12 teams and you continue to have pool play, there's no perfect formula. But I think that this formula, it gives us the best option in a couple of different areas. Number one, it always ensures that we have meaningful games on Saturday. In the previous pool play situation, we had two teams potentially playing on Saturday that had no chance to win their pool, and that's a tough situation for everybody, but certainly for the atmosphere of the tournament. Now we always have meaningful games on Saturday. You're never going to play more than four games in the week, so you're not in a position where you're going to cash your pitching staff potentially for the next week. And so I -- granted, we've played well in this format over the last -- that's 3-1 we are in this format, 3-1 in pool play in this format over the last two years, so it's been advantageous for us. But I like it. Is it perfect? No. But I think the pluses far outweigh the cons in this format. Q. I'm going to use one of your favorite words here. Seems like it happened yesterday, but clearly Ryan didn't have his best stuff today, but he grinded -- CHRIS POLLARD: Yeah. Q. He fought it out. He gave you guys a chance, kept working on it. Can you address his performance? CHRIS POLLARD: Yeah, I think if you asked him and he were sitting here, he would say that was maybe his worst stuff of the year. But what an unbelievable job by a senior captain of staying in the moment, staying in the fight, executing pitches one pitch at a time, and you used a word and I would have used it if you hadn't, he grinded his way through five innings. We looked up at the end of five, we're right there in that ballgame, and that's a job well done by a senior captain. Q. How do you feel like Mitch lines up against Louisville tomorrow? CHRIS POLLARD: Well, they're playing exceptionally well right now. That's the thing. I'm so impressed with Stowers and his progress as a player. We saw him in Louisville 13 months ago, and he has grown so much as a player. And what a job by Dan McDonnell to lose all the guys that they lost from last year's team and be in this position. You could make a compelling case that Louisville has played as well over the last four weeks as anybody in the country, not just in the ACC. So we've got our hands full. Obviously we're seeing a guy in Wolf that's been really, really good. I have really liked our approach against lefties of late. I thought we had a great approach against Connor Thomas in Atlanta this past Friday. We really -- I thought that was maybe as good of an approach as we've had against a lefty. And then the next day we had a really good approach against Hurter, another left-hander. So I like the way we're swinging the bats against lefties, but we're seeing arguably as good of a lefty as we've seen all year. They've got Smiddy and Bordner rested and ready to go down in their bullpen, so we've got a difficult task in front of us. But the one thing you know about Mitch Stallings is he's going to compete like crazy. He lives for ballgames like this. The bigger the stage, the more he enjoys being out there on the mound, and I have no doubt that he's going to come out and really compete for us. Q. Chris, just to revisit the format once more, considering four teams after their first game could not advance, it's a de facto single-elimination tournament. Would you be in favor of a straight single elimination with four byes for the top four teams? CHRIS POLLARD: Like what the SEC does, and then move to a double elimination from there? Q. Actually straight single elimination through, play two games on four days and you still have the semis on Saturday and final on Sunday? CHRIS POLLARD: I would want to look more closely at it, but I think the things that we have to do for the health of our league and putting ourselves in the best position to be successful next week is make sure that we only play three games a day, so we only have three ballgames per day, and we make sure that a team doesn't have to play more than four games to get through Sunday so that you're not running the risk of putting guys in a difficult position, do I bring a guy back who threw on Tuesday or Wednesday, do I really stretch my bullpen thin to try to stay in this thing. You know, I definitely look at that, but again, I think the format we've got right now has got a lot of pluses. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|