Tulane/Houston Quotes (May 27)
May 27, 2006 | Baseball
May 27, 2006
HOUSTON, Texas - No. 2 Houston 6, No. 3 Tulane 0
Reckling Park - Houston, Texas
Host: Rice University
TULANE QUOTES
HEAD COACH Rick Jones
Thoughts on the game
"Luis Flores pitched so good today. You know, he has beaten us twice and he is a tremendous competitor. He pitches both halves of the plate with his fastball about as well as you are going to see in college baseball. The ballpark was playing real big and he used that to his advantage. He kept his pitch count down and managed both halves of the plate."
"I thought we did not play well enough to be able to offset a great pitching performance that we saw against. I thought Stephen (Porlier) battled, did not have his best command, but he battled and had a chance to get out of that one inning there. We did something we don't do very often - we've been such a great defensive club. When you're fielding .979, you know you make most of your plays and a lot of tough ones. Today, we had two errors and that cost us too."
On Stephen Porlier working out of control problems
"We had a good chance there if we could have gotten something going offensively. He made some pitches when he had too. The ballpark was very forgiving today and that worked towards his advantage. I thought when Stephen was able to get the ball in the zone was able to do the same thing, but I go back it and the difference in the game today was (Luis Flores).
STARTING PITCHER Stephen Porlier
On struggling through some control problems
"It was just calming down and not thinking too much about every pitch. I just struggled a little bit to work through that. I battled and gave it my all. So, I battled and it worked out for me."
LEFTFIELDER Matt Riser
On Luis Flores' outing
"The guy is a competitor. That is the bottom line right there. The guy had stamina and he had a big heart. When you go out there and compete like he does, he had good stuff and he hit spots well. He threw a good ballgame. He kept us off-balance late and we had the one chance, had a big inning going there and his competitiveness came out and he beat us straight-up today."
FIRST BASEMAN Mark Hamilton
On the defensive error putting pressure on the offense
"I have never felt that our defense, good or bad, has ever put pressure on us or our pitching. The offense, the defense and the pitching, they have all worked really well together during our games. I don't think it put any more pressure on us because at that point in time we still had to score to win. We had not even cracked the board, so it didn't really change anything, we just knew we had to get a couple of more.
On Luis Flores' outing
"He was throwing very well. He just worked down in the zone, off both sides of the plate, a few inches of here and a few inches off there, just nibbled, nibbled, nibbled, nibbled. When you are doing that, hitting spots, getting some calls here and getting some calls there and you are going to be tough. It's hard to hit from behind in the count, he can throw whatever he wants at you when he gets you 0-2. I know personally, I was 0-2 a couple of times on real good pitches he made early in the count. If those pitches are not that good, then maybe we hit a few balls in the gap and maybe it's a totally different game."
HOUSTON QUOTES
HEAD COACH RAYNER NOBLE
Thoughts on the game
"I think the theme for today was the job that Luis Flores did on the mound," Houston head coach Rayner Noble said. "They got three hits. They were never able to string anything together. He only walked one guy. You look at how many guys Tulane left on base and it's four. That shows they just never really had much going on offense. He was superb today. For a guy that was really living off his fastball - just unbelievable."
On adding to their lead with a three-run seventh inning
"Obviously, it was huge. We had numerous opportunities with two outs to add to the two runs that we had. That's baseball. You have to just take what you get. You can't start pressing and you know that's the thing about our ball club - a lot of teams start tightening up, tightening up. We've got too much going for us on offense to tighten up and the guys do a good job. (Bryan) Tulley and (Brett) Logan at the bottom of the order, are the ones who are the ones who started things rolling for us and that tells you a lot about our line up."
On being a former pitcher and appreciating the job Luis Flores did today
"Well, I think the thing is, any baseball connoisseur will tell you that your team is only going as far as your pitching will take them and our pitching staff knows that. I think it was a microcosm today of how valuable a well-started game is. Like you said, that was his best game as a Cougar so far."
On his team's set up for the championship game
"If you could write up a script of where we needed to be with our pitching staff, I mean, this would be it right here. If Rice can get through today and we see them tomorrow, I think there is going to be a big crowd."
STARTING PITCHER LUIS FLORES
On his start
"We just went out there and knew we had to win the game. We didn't want to play a second game. From the get-go, I was in the bullpen and told Coach (Kirk) Blount, all I need is one run today. I felt good. The offense gave me six runs and that's all we needed. I felt I needed to go strong because we needed as much pitching to get by Rice or whoever we were playing."
On his fastball working so well
"That fastball was there - that was my best pitch today. I would just show curveball and change up wasn't working at times and I stuck with my best pitch and it was the fastball. I had a lot of velocity on it today and felt really good."
CATCHER BRETT LOGAN
On pitching plan
"Our game plan all day was to just go right at them. They are a strong and very aggressive hitting team and I told Luis from the get-go, if you can hit your spots with something on the ball, then we'll have success today. He proved that - no doubt."
On this being his last go around
"Going into this whole year, coming back from the fall, things really didn't work out for me last year, as far as going to the next level and I knew coming back that this was going to be special. This is my last go around and a couple of other guys too, our last shot at something special. A lot of the older guys have taken some of the younger guys under our wing and kind of said, `look, this is our shot - as Coach Noble calls it - going to the Promise Land.' And that is what we are aimed at. Being an older guy, last year is definitely a motivator and just wanting to make something happen."
