Everything Monte Lee said after South Carolina's midweek defeat to College of Charleston

South Carolina interim head baseball coach Monte Lee spoke to the media following the team’s 6-4 loss to the College of Charletson on Tuesday. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“First and foremost, congratulations to the College of Charleston. They played a great baseball game tonight. They scored early; they took advantage of some ‘free 90s’ and some opportunities — hitting the big three-run homer — and went ahead. I believe it was 4-0 at that time, scored right there in the first inning, and put plenty of pressure on us. And then, [Connor] Chicoli came into the game, and I thought he did an outstanding job. Just pounded the strike zone. He gave us some length, he gave us a chance to find a way to get back into it.

“We really couldn’t find an answer for the starter [Austin Wiegandt]. Didn’t swing the bat great. Need to do a better job first two times through the order. You know, you give up three runs… I heard this many, many years ago: When you give up a big inning, you have got to find a way to go back into the dugout and score. You’ve got to find a way to get some momentum back in your dugout — somehow, some way. And we just didn’t do it.

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“Then, we started to chip away. [Tyler] Bak hit the two-run homer to tie the ball game, and at that point, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, we’ve got some bullets available in the bullpen.’ And unfortunately, look, I felt terrible for [Alex] Philpott. He got two outs, and then base hit, base hit, double, and they wound up scoring a couple runs. And then, we had our opportunity there in the ninth inning. Talmadge [LeCroy] with the base hit, [KJ Scobey] hit a ball deep to right field with two strikes, and then [Luke] Yuhasz with a hit. We brought the winning run up to the plate, and we punched out.

“You got to give them credit. They played a better baseball game than we did. They found a way to score early. We found a way to get back into it. But ultimately, they were the better team tonight, and they deserved to win.”

Not only tonight, but a few games in the past few weeks, it’s been right there. Is there just one thing that’s not clicking, or you just got to get that one big hit or make that one big pitch?

“I think we need to come up with that big hit just like they did. At the end of the game, they had two outs, they had a base hit up the middle. And then, a ground ball… You know, just tough luck.

“I got to take a minute and talk about Will Craddock. This guy plays everywhere that we need him to play, and God does he play hard. Like, he represents this program so well, and he practices like that in pregame. I mean, every single day, first guy to the cage, practices hard, just does everything the right way. And it shows up on the field. He’s a winner, but he had tough luck on that hard-hit ground ball. I about lost my breath running out there thinking, ‘Oh, man. I hope he’s not hurt.’ And luckily, he’s going to be okay. And then, they hit the double. So they came up with the big hits when they needed it, and unfortunately, we didn’t.

“We need to come up with a big hit, and I think probably part of it is my fault. I probably talk about it too much, quite honestly. I mean, we talk about it daily: ‘Hey, just be aggressive with runners in scoring position. If it doesn’t work out, it’s okay. Just want you to go up there, swing the bat with conviction.’ We have some at-bats where we take a good pitch to hit with runners on base, or we’re overly aggressive and we chase some pitches out of the zone. So we just got to find a way to relax and just enjoy the competition.

“I think a big part of it, too, is to understand that the pressure is on the pitcher. When you got runners on basic, they got to make pitches. And sometimes, I think we try a little too much, and it just didn’t work out for us tonight. But we got to keep getting better. That’s the bottom line: Just keep working with them and keep finding ways to get better.”

What can you share about your message to the guys afterwards?

“I think, for me right now, there was a couple things that I brought up. One of them is, we can’t worry so much about the things that don’t truly matter. At the end of the day, your batting average, your earned run average, your numbers, your stats… I know Kent [Reichert] does a heck of a job with our stats, but I told the players, ‘Do not look at your stats. Like, your stats do not matter. The only person that’s going to remember your career stats are you and your parents. That’s about it. They do not matter.’

“The only thing that matters is, how do you make your teammates feel? How do you make the fans feel? When they come to the field and they watch you play, what do they say about you? ‘God, that guy plays hard. Man, he competes his rear end off.’ Those are the things that people remember. ‘He was such a great teammate. He did everything the right way.’ Those are the things that ultimately are going to matter, so we got to quit worrying so much about things that don’t matter — getting hits, striking people out, those types of things. And I’m not saying that’s what’s happening, but I think, sometimes, when baseball players are inconsistent, it comes from they’re worried about their numbers. We can’t worry about our numbers because nobody cares.

“At the end of the day, the only thing they care about is, are we winning? We got to play winning baseball, and winning baseball is going out there and being as competitive as you freaking can be for nine innings. That’s all that matters, and that’s all that needs to matter. We don’t need to worry about what people are saying about us on social media. People have jobs to do; they got to write about what we’re doing. But at the end of the day, the only people that matter are the people in that locker room, and that’s it. That’s what we got to focus on: being the best teammates you can be for your other teammates, putting this team first and competing your butts off every single day to try to help us win ball games.

“And if we come up short, we come up short. I’m looking for players that we can lose with. There’s a big difference. When you start looking at, ‘Hey, we lost, but this freaking guy gave us everything he could give us.’ If you got a bunch of guys that, when things are not going well, they’re doing all the right things, that’s when you’re going to be able to turn the tide. And that’s what we got to do. We can’t worry so much about our individual ups and downs. We just got to go out there and compete for each other.”

You’ve been around and played schools you’re familiar with, played coaches you’re familiar with, but is this one unique because you got the former USC coach coaching Charleston, and the former Charleston coach coaching USC?

“Well, Chad [Holbrook] and I go way back. As far as Chad coaching here, I mean, I coached against Chad when he was at North Carolina. That part doesn’t bother me at all.

“Look, I’m happy for Chad. He’s coaching at my alma mater, in a place that I love dearly, so I’m happy. And Will Dorton’s his pitching coach. I signed will Dorton; he played for me. Lee Curtis is his hitting coach. I coached Lee Curtis in junior college. So, I mean, I have ties to the people.

“It’s not easy for me to coach against College of Charleston — and quite honestly, it never has been, just because it’s my alma mater and it’s a place I was a head coach for seven years. So it’s certainly different when you play against the place that you love so much. But that being said, you’re still trying to win. You want to win just like they want to win. It’s about the competition and the kids. It ain’t about me and Chad, I can tell you that: It’s about the kids at that point. It’s about them going out there and playing their best baseball against each other.

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“So it’s always a little bit different playing CofC because of how much the place means to me. But as far as Chad and I, shoot, we’re just in it for the kids. We want to see the kids go out there and compete and do well.”

You’re locked in on this season and trying to ride the ship here, but talking with Holbrook after the game, he said that he thought you should be the head coach here going forward. Do you have any reaction to him saying that?

“Well, I greatly appreciate that. Again, Chad and I have been friends for many, many years. When I left to go to the College of Charleston was when Chad came to South Carolina, and Chad was incredibly instrumental in them winning multiple national championships. So Chad and I are very dear friends, and I think the world of him. And for him to say that, I greatly appreciate it.

“I’ve said this, and maybe it sounds like it’s the company man thing to say, but I don’t know what the future holds. Do I? I don’t. The only thing I can do right now is do my very best for the players that are in this program and represent this program to the best of my ability and be the leader that these kids need. Not perfect, not saying I’m always going to make the right decisions, but I can tell you this: I’m going to give them everything I freaking got every single day. And I love these kids. That’s all that really matters to me, and I’m going to do it as long as I can until my coaching days are over, wherever I am.

“So I don’t spend that much time focusing on that. I spend all of my time focusing on the here and now, things I can control, just coaching these kids and trying to make them better.”

Since you’ve taken over as the head coach after the initial conversations with Jeremiah [Donati], have you had any follow-up with him? Has he sought you out just to check in with you? Any conversation between you two since you took over as the interim coach?

“No, and I wouldn’t expect it to. He gave me the opportunity to be the interim head coach. We had a meeting and a conversation, and I think he trusts me that I’m going to do my very best. I haven’t had any more conversations since that point in time, but I wouldn’t expect to.

“I respect the fact that he’s just letting me do my job. I’m sure, at some point, we’ll have a conversation. Look, he’s been a pretty busy man with some other sports and what’s been going on, too, so I wouldn’t expect to necessarily hear from him. I appreciate the fact that he’s just letting me do my thing, but no, I haven’t.”

You’ll hop on a plane for Missouri tomorrow. They just won their series at Kentucky this past weekend. What have you noticed about those guys?

“I mean, I don’t know a ton about them. I’ll certainly spend tomorrow… I’m not going to have a lot of time tomorrow to look at them, I know we have all our scouting reports ready. But they’re more offensive, for sure, this year, just looking at them. I think they have, like, four left-handed hitters and a switch hitter in there. They got a former Gamecock in there swinging it pretty good for them in Jase Woita. So they’re going to be tough. And they’re tough to play there. I mean, that’s a tough place to play.

“But look, we’ve had our moments in the last few weeks where we played pretty good. It’d be great to see us be able to play a complete series. And with the pitching staff, the starters that we have, they’re going to give us a chance. So I’m excited about getting out there and seeing what we can do.”

Just to follow up on that, what will be your pitching plans for that series?

“We’re going to decide tomorrow. We’ve been discussing that. We haven’t quite made a decision on that, as far as game one, yet. I think we know what we’re going to do in game two, but as far as game one and three, we haven’t quite made a decision. I mean, I think you know the cast of characters that will be involved. It’s just a matter of who we decide to run out there in game one. And then, obviously, from there, that’ll determine what we do in game three. But we haven’t quite decided yet what we’re going to do.”

[Patrick] Evans bunted in the fifth inning or so there against [Alex] Lyon. What was your thought process behind that one?

“Well, because we had first and second at that point. Lyon, being a sidearm guy, he’s a ground ball guy, and you got a right-handed hitter up. My biggest concern was that we would hit into a double play, so I wanted to have runners in scoring position with Bak coming up to get us on the board. We hadn’t done anything at that point offensively, and I felt like we needed to find a way to get a lefty up against the sidearm righty, which is a much better matchup. And Bak tends to hit pretty well with runners in scoring position. So I just wanted to bunt.

“And quite honest, when we got two strikes, a lot of times, guys bunt better with two strikes because they don’t run out of the box when they’re trying to bunt the ball. So I just said, ‘Hey, I’m going to make him bunt with two strikes because a) I didn’t want him to hit into a double play, and I didn’t want him to punch out.’ I wanted him to get the runners over somehow, someway, so I made him bunt.

“Looking back at it, I probably wish I would have let him hit. But just think about it: You got first and second, nobody out, he hits a ground ball to shortstop, hits into a double play, that kills our inning. So I did not want to hit into a double play right there, especially with a pretty tough matchup. That kid’s throwing, like, a 65 mph slider and a 74 mph fastball. It’s such an outlier look for hitters. We don’t see guys like that a whole lot, which is why he’s effective.

“So that was why I bunted in that situation. We just hadn’t hit anything up to that point, and I wanted to try to find a way to get some runs on the board because I felt like that could create some momentum for us.”

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