James Mansinger Quotations

We're going to pitch, but we didn't pitch great today. There's no doubt about that. Clayton McMillan did pitch well. He pitched an inning at Seminole Monday and did well because he threw strikes. That's the whole deal for him, throwing strikes.

I thought we hit him (Todd) well. We swung the bats well in the second game, but we just left too many men on base.

Our pitching was really good today. Zane has pitched well all season long, and It's always been there for Clayton. We've just been waiting for him to figure it out, and in his last two starts he's done exactly what he did today. Derek Ward also threw a strong inning for us, and Justin Wells did just what we needed him to do.

Our pitchers have got to learn to throw strikes and get ahead in the count. I thought we played well defensively, but once you fall behind 14-0, you're not going to do much offensively.

Justin threw real well today. He's got good stuff. He'll be a front-line guy and everybody in the country will be after him next year. He's got a good arm, and he throws so easy. He's not a big effort guy.

We just didn't pitch in the second game. The big inning killed us again. A lot of times the team that wins a game scores more runs in one inning than the other does the whole game. They scored six in the fifth inning, and we scored six on the day.

We've been getting Whatley some pinch hits, and he caught one of the games at Seminole. He's been swinging the bat well, and when you're swinging well you're going to find your way into the lineup.

Those are the same guys that threw against us at their place. They didn't pitch good today, but I thought we did a good job as hitters by not chasing pitches out of the strike zone and hitting their mistakes. Hit mistakes and don't chaseto me that's the key to offensive baseball.

We'd like to have played better in the second game (12-4 loss), but we'll take a split. Winning the first game today makes it a little easier as far as getting in the playoffs. It's one win closer to getting in the (Region XIV) tournament.

Our defense has been going through this. I don't know if you can or not, but I think we've gone into a defensive slump. I don't know if we're not concentrating enough or what, but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it right now. We're going to work on it, but they know they made errors; you don't have to tell them.

I told Zane that's he's had good starts all year long, and every pitcher somewhere every year is going to have a bad start. Unfortunately, for Zane it came today. But I have to tip my hat to their pitcher. We got to him early, but he settled in and pitched well after that.

I don't know if it was the heat or he was tired from the first game, but Jose didn't have good stuff. We don't like having to play him at shortstop the first game, but we don't have a choice.