Everything FSU's Link Jarrett said after losing to Oregon State
The FSU Seminoles lost to the Oregon State Beavers 5-4 on Friday in the first game of the Corvallis Super Regional. They led 4-1 entering the ninth inning with two outs before three state Oregon State players reached to tie the game.
The Beavers then walked it off in the 10th inning, getting a leadoff double to immediately put pressure on the Seminoles before ending it with a bases-loaded single. FSU's fans were stunned by the loss, which has them on the brink of elimination.
Head coach Link Jarrett spoke with the media after the loss and admitted it was brutal to watch Oregon State celebrate after blowing the lead in the ninth inning.
"Oh, that's awful. I mean, it doesn't get much worse than that, and these guys will regroup," he said. "We have Arnold going, and they need to feel this a little bit. You're not shaking this off right now. I mean, absolutely, and you should not."
He also talked about Joey Volini's start, Hunter Carns behind the plate, if they considered pulling Joe Charles in the ninth inning, and more. Here's everything Jarrett had to say in his postgame press conference.
Opening Statement
Two good teams going at it.
I thought, the starting pitching was different, like, each one of those guys was built to pitch differently. Both were tremendous. Joey was on it, he could move his fastball around. The big breaking ball, I think he had that all day. He used his change-up well. I can't ask for more than that at the start of this situation.
Rolling in here is a place that we've never played. Pitched out of some lead-off activity, and seemed to manage and got some big outs. That first out, when they seemed like they were positioned to have some sort of an inning created , he did a good job.
I thought our defense was solid. There were some tricky plays. Shortstop, Lodise, there were three or four. Third baseman, Fisher, several nice little plays. Our second baseman made a nice one up the middle. The play that Lodise made to kind of keep the game from ending up the middle was really nice. I thought our catcher, Carns, did a great job. Both teams had nice relays. That was a big out that we had.
You have to finish games and Joe had what seemed like a favorable matchup, but the breaking ball needed to be underneath the zone. I think that ball, you guys can see better than me, it looked like it was more in the middle part of the zone and it was elevated a little bit. That's a talented team.
We racked up some strikeouts. I think as we did that, it drove Whitney's pitch count up pretty good. We were able to get him out there. Our two-out hitting was good.
There were several two-out key hits that we had. Myles' home run was big. So sporadic offensive stuff for both teams, but clearly they stacked enough at the end.
Joe had been really good for us. They stacked some big ways to come out on top. You have to finish games and you have to finish pitches, and we did not finish the inning or really finish the pitches that we needed to make. And we had a chance to end it, with a runner on second base and two outs. We felt like we were in position. But they're a good team. You can see why we're here playing them. They earned it and they earned the win.
On whether they were too aggressive on the bases
The first one was a bad mistake. I think he thought that ball was going out, and it did not. You have to run the bases as if it's not, and it does so be it.
And then the other one, Max, just needs to keep on rolling there. But, yeah, it adds up. I mean, everything when you're in this situation matters. And, yes, they all add up. They all matter.
On whether they considered going to someone else in the 9th inning with Joe Charles' pitch count
Well, we had thoughts of it. We had guys prepped and ready. It seemed like the matchup, and his stuff favorably worked for that hitter. It just wasn't, he did not execute it.
Was it too much? I mean, we had a number in mind. He was not there.
So did it factor in? Maybe it did. You know, he's got to harness things. It got a little messy in the wild pitch and some of the other things with the left-handed hitters.
That has not fazed him, but something appeared to today. I think if he just keeps that last one down. It may not be a punch-out, but I don't think it's hit like that.
On Joey Volini's curveball
It was great.
He's a big kid and, it had a good release height to it, and it's got tremendous spin. When he's landing that, you see a lot of takes. I think hitters, even good hitters, give up on that thing a little bit because it's so big.
And Whitney has a similar pitch. Joey may have landed it more frequently today, but it was great. He was able to get the break ball down and got some swings over the top of that thing, so you can't ask for more than that out of what he did.
On Hunter Carns' performance catching, hitting
Steady. It was like a rock back there today. His at-bats were really good all day. The ball to right-center, and the base hit to left. Caught great, blocked.
Both catchers stood out to me. They're guy played a good game, he's a senior, grinds, big at-bats, handled things.
You could tell both of them are handling the umpire and just aving that relationship to try to work through things that involve very proud in Carns as a freshman and just says a lot about his make-up and capabilities to step in here and deliver the way he did defensively and at the plate.
On where the team is at, watching Oregon State celebrate
Oh, that's awful. I mean, it doesn't get much worse than that, and these guys will regroup. We have Arnold going, and they need to feel this a little bit.
You're not shaking this off right now. I mean, absolutely, and you should not.
Like, there were enough good things that happened, but there are also enough negative things that took away from our chances to really either have more of a lead or snuff it out, and you need to think on it a little bit and reflect and how do you learn. It's tough. This is a tough, tough learning situation, but it has to become that because you can't repeat those things clearly, and then the guys that were not maybe in the situation today have to learn from what happened.
And on this stage, in this moment, with the lock-in and the capabilities of the players, everything needs to click to get all 27 outs. And every one of them is an accumulation of how you execute, and we probably, although it felt like we were in position, we came out on the downside of the execution.
On how they chased Oregon State's starter early
Well, he's got four above-average pitches.
So, we were trying to make sure we were prepared for the fastball and then try to figure out if he was landing the other pitches. If there was a chink coming into this, it was maybe he didn't land the secondary pitches as often as he did, and then it turned into he was gonna attack with the fastball just from what we had studied and looked for.
So, the recognition is not easy, but I was disappointed in the number of strikeouts that we had, but it did get them out there and there were some things that were created because of the patience. The strikeout looking is just really tough to deal with when it happens, but, all in all, we did mount some good at-bats and the two-out hitting was good.
On the team's ability to respond to adversity over the past two years
These are independent competitions, and as difficult as that feels right now, when it's 6:06, and that first pitch was thrown. This shouldn't have anything to do with it. You have to go play and perform and finish and execute and have an offensive attack and run the bases better and execute pitches better.
That's how we approach. Had the script been reversed in this, and we were all excited right now. It still has to be the same approach, and if that helps them be resilient, then great because this game is played so frequently.
The number of games, you have to handle the ups and downs. If you're going to be successful as a team, and the players, within the team's success or failure, there's individual highs and lows that they have to absorb, too. So some of those guys that had great games, that's over with, and some that didn't, that's also over with.
So there's the team component, and then there's the individual performance that has to be repetitive when you play so many games in this sport.
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