Mike Bianco Quotations

We're back in the race. We knew it was a 30-game season, but when you play two weekends as poorly as we had played, it's hard to believe that. That's what losing does for you. You lose confidence.

Obviously we addressed some needs after the losses we had from last year's team. To have the eighth-ranked class in the nation shows the work that Dan McDonnell has done to keep us in a position to continue to compete nationally.

For the short term, yes, you're concerned, because he hasn't had success three times in a row. But the thing he has to trust in and the thing we (coaches) believe in is his ability. He will be a winner, and he will keep getting opportunities.

I think, that happens a lot in our game. Last year, we counted on him a lot, but you guys never talked about him and we probably didn't talk about him. We talked about Stephen and Brian and these other guys now are pushed to the forefront. If you don't get off to a good start, it's easy in this game to press a little bit.

Lance pitched great. He was very impressive considering it was his first collegiate start. He pitched with a lot of confidence.

It is not often you play two straight games and allow no runs. Lance pitched great today. He was very impressive considering it was his first collegiate start. He pitched with a lot of confidence.

Right now, sugar is not so sweet. Everybody's raised their prices.

I think if we could have kept the game close, we'd have had a shot because we were having good at-bats. We thought we'd be a little farther along. The good news is there are a lot of games ahead.

Will's got electric stuff. He's had a good year, but like most of our pitchers, it's been up-and-down. Tonight, he was lights out. He was ahead in the count, very composed out there.

We were very inconsistent tonight. We just didn't play well. It is frustrating, because we play well one night and not the next day. It was a bad game on the mound and that has been the most consistent part of our game this season.

We got their pitcher on the ropes early, but we didn't capitalize and let him get back on a roll after the first couple of innings.

We're excited about having everyone back on campus. There were no surprises for us. Everyone reported and showed up on time. We're excited about the prospects as we get to work today to start following up our 2005 season with even more success.

We competed hard today, but UCLA just played better than we did. We got their pitcher on the ropes early, but we didn't capitalize and let him get back on a roll after the first couple of innings. We never were able to take that momentum back.

We kept answering (at the plate). We kept controlling the game. Every time they would score we would score. We kept extending the lead and made it more and more difficult for them.

We wanted to get him back out there and get his feet wet again. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want.

The reason he got moved to the Friday role is that he gives us the best opportunity to win the game of anybody we've got. He deserves to pitch on Friday.

We've been swinging the bats well for five or six games. But a good pitcher sometimes can stop that. Crawford was able to get ahead of the hitters and make the clutch pitch.

Baseball is so much about confidence. How you feel about your swing, your pitching. I don't think it's a false confidence. We know we have to play well to win. We didn't play well in March. We've seen both sides of it, which I think is a good thing.

At some point, we've got to stop it and turn it around and go in the other direction. Hopefully that time is coming.

There's no doubt Tommy has to pitch for us in some capacity. We've got to figure out what that's going to be.

The success that he's already had, there's not a lot of freshmen that can do that and be counted on on the weekend. It's different to pitch on Tuesday than it is to pitch on the weekend where there's more pressure involved and more at stake and better competition. To do what he's done so far is pretty impressive.

You've got to try to stay positive now and believe that things are going to turn around. The negative is that we're (14-11) and 1-5 in the league. But it's only two weekends.

This isn't all about the money, anyway. It's what's in the best interest of the game.

This game was a total reversal of yesterday's game. We put pressure on them offensively and we were able to deliver the knock out blow. We hit the ball great and pitched great.

A sweep is a just a big blow. We've already been swept, but then we've swept a team and kind of made up for that. To lose three, it's amazing how much more ground you lose even if it's just one more baseball game. It's almost two games. It's a big deal (to win) after losing the first two.

It was disappointing because I thought it would be a good night with the way we started the night. To start off like we did and not be able to put them away is disappointing.

It was really a big momentum shift. Even though it just ties it up, it's a game-winner.

It was a solid performance, similar to the way we played the first three games.

Crawford got ahead of hitters and made clutch pitches. He didn't walk that many, and we weren't able to get the timely hit like we did in the first game.

That really came at the right time for us. We just haven't played real good baseball, and it's tough with a young club when you have adversity early.

Eighteen innings, to get eight hits. You're not going to win a lot of games.

That happens sometimes, and there's no real reason for it. This was more like us.

That isn't something that just coach Polk and me decide.

Not a lot of good has happened to us. And tonight, with their big grand slam, we showed a lot bouncing back.

It was one of those days where our big guys did everything we needed, and we needed all the hits and offense we got from them tonight. We needed every bit of offense we could find. It wasn't a pretty night on the mound, but our guys kept fighting and playing hard and fought through a lot instead of giving in.

It was just a bad night. It is tough to win when you give up a 10-run inning. The kids kept competing. We could not answer the big inning. They answered every time we tried to start a run.

I'm not disappointed in the loss, but in the way we lost. We just didn't pitch or field all night.

If you're not playing well, it doesn't matter if you have experience or if you're playing at home or what you're doing. They're all storylines that reporters want to touch on ... but I think it has more to do with how Texas plays and how well we play.

(In the first game) we played really well. It was a sound defensive game where we turned a couple of double plays, but I thought the story of the day was Craig Rodriguez. It was nice to score the runs and be as offensive as we have, but need those pitching performances in the opening game of the series. (Rodriguez) was really strong today.

Cisco was terrific tonight. His command was brilliant.

Cisco was terrific tonight. Craig almost matched him pitch-for-pitch. But Crisp hits the homer. Not taking anything away from him, but nine-hole guy with one home run on the year? We're one pitch away.

He's a guy who got off to a slow start, but if we're going to make any kind of run, we're going to need him. The last few weeks he's really been playing well.

He only threw 47 pitches (Friday) and we just wanted to get him out there one inning and maybe two if it went real easy for him. We wanted him to pitch. Sometimes it doesn't work the way you want.

You've got to give them a lot of credit, being down 3-1 with only six outs remaining and they're at the bottom of their lineup. It's a tough one to swallow, but the bottom line is they beat us.

You've got to believe that you're a good club. It wasn't easy. There's some games that were tough. But they've hung in there and hopefully we can keep it going.

All the games count the same. It's a marathon.