Postgame Quotes - Texas 9, Kansas 0
April 21, 2011
Postgame Quotes
No. 4 Texas 9, Kansas 0
April 21, 2011 – Lawrence, Kan.
Kansas Head Coach Ritch Price
On starting pitcher Thomas Taylor:
“I was actually really pleased with (Thomas) Taylor for the first five innings. He got into trouble and pitched with his fastball and got out of trouble. In the sixth inning, we made a couple of bad defensive plays and they (Texas) became very aggressive early in the count and they hit his fastball around the park. He didn’t have the ability to spin the ball and he couldn’t mix up his pitches when we needed him to do that.”
On why Taylor’s velocity dropped:
“Obviously his stamina is going to continue to get better, you look at the board at Taylor was throwing 91-92 in the first five innings and then all of a sudden he was 87-88, that’s three or four feet on your fastball that you’re short as the game goes on.”
On how he views this loss:
“I just talked about having a very short memory. That’s the first time that we’ve been boat-raced in a long time. We’ve obviously got to pitch better to stay in the game. We’ve got to play better defense and then offensively, we got completely dominated. As a result it was close for five innings and then they blew it open shortly after.”
On Texas starting pitcher Taylor Jungmann:
“I think he did a really good job of locating his fastball down and he did a really good job of mixing in his breaking balls, so when he did throw a fastball, it looked like it was about 95-95 MPH. He was able to spin his balls for strikes and that’s what we weren’t able to do. We weren’t able to spin the ball at all. You saw how aggressive they were with the first and second pitches. By the time they got to the sixth and seventh inning, they did a really nice job of hammering our fastball.
On how to improve at the plate:
“We’ve seen that kind of velocity all season and we’ve been successful. Hopefully we can approach it right tomorrow and put together some quality at-bats. If we can do that, we will be fine.”
Kansas starting pitcher Thomas Taylor
On the first four innings of the game:
“The first four innings were great. I was throwing my fastball for strikes on both sides of the plate. Everything was good until the sixth inning. Texas always has good pitching, so you have to limit your mistakes. Then I started walking some people and it just went downhill from there.”
On the opportunity to pitch against Texas:
“I was really excited when I found out I was starting. I was really anxious; I just wanted the game to get here. I was obviously happy the first four innings. Outside of that, obviously I need to do better.”
On the feeling after only being down 1-0 in the fifth inning:
“You can come back from a one-run deficit. Jungmann is really good; he may only give up one or two runs a game. After the sixth inning, when you get down like that, it’s hard to come back. Against him, it’s tough because he’s very good and he’s not going to make a lot of mistakes.”
Kansas right fielder Casey Lytle
On the team’s struggles at the plate:
“I think we kept ourselves off-balance. I think we let (Jungmann) throw his fastball for strikes, especially the first pitches. We weren’t really taking it away. He was making good pitches and hitting his marks, but we need to work on taking some pitches away.”
On correcting the problem at the plate:
“(Jungmann) is their best guy. They have different pitchers and they’re all different in their own way. But today, (Jungmann) throws the hardest so we are going to be facing less velocity over the weekend. But especially facing Texas, you know everybody you’re facing is going to be very good so you just have to be ready.”
On the team’s mindset after being down 1-0:
“When you let a team like that get on base, and then we make a couple of mistakes, that’s really when they go for the jugular and they don’t let up. Today was a prime example of that.”
