May 31, 2014
Recap | Box Score | Howell’s Gallery 
Postgame Quotes
Nashville Regional
No. 1 Seed Vanderbilt 7, No. 2 seed Oregon 2
Oregon Coach George Horton
Opening statement:
“We got outplayed. Somebody asked me a question yesterday about momentum, and I hate to be a prophet, but one of my quotes was, ‘In baseball, the momentum is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher.’ And Carson Fulmer, as advertised, was a handful for us.”
On Jeff Gold:
“Against a ball club like Vandy, you need to play championship baseball, and be almost flawless. I don’t think Jeff Gold, who has won a lot of ball games for us, was awful, but he wasn’t perfect. And when he wasn’t perfect, Vandy hitters made him pay in the fifth inning, which was the real crooked number and the real back-breaker. There was a couple of outs we didn’t execute, and that was real costly. It’s hard to come back from a five-run inning.”
On the fifth inning:
“It was one of those nightmare innings. The leadoff hitter hits a ball hard, and that probably knuckled or had top spin to the shortstop’s right and it would have taken a championship play (to get the out). That was an out that was available. And then Jeff Gold had a perfect double-play ball and the shortstop didn’t execute. I’m not sure if it was a mentality thing where he was kicking himself for not getting the first one or what.”
On how to attack Fulmer:
“I know what our typical plan is against a guy that throws 96 or 98 and that’s to disarm the fastball. If you’re going to sit on that off-speed stuff you’ve got no chance. That guy looked like Sonny Gray to me… and I think Carson’s fastball is better than Sonny’s if I’m not mistaken.”
Right fielder Tyler Baumgartner
On consecutive games with a triple:
“I don’t think anything drastic has been changing. Baseball is just a funny game. You’ll go in spurts when you’re seeing the ball really well and you’re going good and then you through spurts where you’re not seeing the ball very good, you’re going 0-4 on weekends. I’m just getting ready in the box, just seeing the ball well.”
On trying to recover from the fifth inning:
“The five-spot is not easy to come back with, but our team was not defeated; we knew that we could come back. There’s always a chance to come back, even in the eighth inning with two outs we know that we can string something together and we never die. We have the confidence that anybody in our lineup can get it done.”
First baseman A.J. Balta
On scoring from second on the grounder:
“Just controlling the controllables. Hustle is one thing I can control. That play was a hustle play, I just had to stick with Coach and see how far I could make it down the third-base line.”
On the loss:
“I don’t think today is a disappointment, I think today is a lesson. You can’t take anyone lightly, and we weren’t taking them lightly but, anybody can beat you on any day so you got to show up to the ballpark ready to play.”
Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin
Opening statement:
“Similar to last night, I think it starts on the mound. Carson certainly did that, he came out and established his pitches and was very aggressive as always. He was very eager to pitch. He was here at 10 a.m. this morning lying on the couch and watching baseball, getting ready to go. You know what you’re going to get with [Fulmer]. We played well, we had to. That’s a very good team. They do everything right. We had to play well to beat them and I thought we did.”
On the fifth inning:
“Nolan [Rogers] got us started with a well-hit ball and we were able to bunt him over. I think at that point we were just trying to play for a run and push ahead, but when you have guys that feed off of each other things open up. We were opportunistic, Dansby’s [Swanson] ball was hit hard but yet may have been caught, Bryan [Reynolds] lifted a ball over the second baseman and Vinny [Conde] was able to hit a ball up the middle. We were able to advance runners but we were also fortunate in putting balls in the right places. The two-out RBI hit by Rhett [Wiseman] down the line was big to cap that inning.”
On having a full bullpen going into Sunday:
“I think the obvious. When you haven’t had to use the bullpen you’re in good shape. Adam [Ravenelle] and T.J. [Pecoraro] each got an inning and threw minimal pitches during that time. We have the pitching, but that doesn’t mean success as there are still very good teams left in this tournament. We just have to do our jobs when we get back on the field.”
On having extra time between the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Regional:
“I think the important thing after that tournament were the two days off. We got away from the ball and the bat. When they came back on Sunday the rest of that week we had some of the best workouts we’ve had. I thought they were fresh. Coach (Travis) Jewett did a good job of mixing up the hitting. Five consecutive days of hitting was a lot of work and put them in a good mindset.”
Starting pitcher Carson Fulmer
On Oregon’s offense:
“They’re a good aggressive team, I knew they’d come out and try and jump on fastballs early in the count. Early on I was able to make my secondary stuff work, later on in the game I pitched to contact and let my defense work.”
On playing defense and defending the bunt:
“To be honest I didn’t think to much about it. I take pride in fielding my position. It’s one of the key things to making your presence known out there. I take being that ninth defender very seriously.”
On going back out for the eighth inning with 110-plus pitches:
“I always try to go back out. Obviously pitch count is a big deal and I respect the coaches’ decision but I always try to stay out there as long as possible to give our team the best chance to win.”
Left fielder Bryan Reynolds
On being one win away from a Super Regional:
“It feels good to be in this spot. Playing postseason baseball is so fun. These past couple games have been the most fun I’ve had playing this sport. You obviously know it’s there but we just have to take it game-by-game and focus on what is directly in front of us.”
On the fifth-inning surge:
“It was huge because we had momentum. We just kept building on it and Carson went out there and dominated.”
On the production of the offense:
“We were just seeing the ball really well. We let it get deep and were able to barrel it up.”
