Shawn Stiffler & Carter Putz Notebook | Post-Pitt
Notre Dame head coach Shawn Stiffler and Carter Putz spoke following the 9-5 loss on Wednesday in the ACC Championship.
On the loss:
”Congratulations to Pittsburgh. They played a great game. Offensively, they were really dialed in. I thought we were dialed in and defensively too. The difference in the baseball game was they hit home runs and we hit into double plays. Plain and simple. We couldn’t keep it in the ballpark. We kept getting traffic the entire day. I loved out at-bats and the way we competed, but we hit into four double plays. It’s nothing we did wrong. Sometimes when you hit the ball on the screws, you hit it at people and they made the plays.
“They did a great job. Disappointing and certainly tough.”
On LHP Aidan Tyrell:
”He just couldn’t locate. It will always come down to that for Aidan. He was in even counts a lot and pitching behind quite a bit. His stuff just didn’t seem to have the finish on it that I’ve seen through this stretch over the last six or seven weeks.
“I thought he was kind of settling in and then a good job by Pitt. A couple times they would be two outs and nobody on - the inning that broke our back was the two-out nobody-on home run by Martinez. They went chopper base hit, flare base hit and then he got a big swing.
“I think he was just a little more elevated than he wanted to be. Pitt does a really good job of not chasing.”
On if there was a thought to have Tyrell start against Wake Forest on Friday:
”No. It was always going to be him vs. Pittsburgh. It was just where our rest is and who was ready. He was first up to be ready. There was never any other thought.”
On Wake Forest being a must-win game on Friday:
”I don’t pretend to know what the committee is thinking or what their thoughts are. Certainly, I would feel a lot better with one of these two wins here. We’re going to treat it that way for sure. I think if we can come 1-1 out of here, I thnk our ACC record proves we’re one of the better teams.”
On if Pitt did anything that proved to be decisive outside of the home runs:
”They just don’t expand. They don’t expand the strike zone. They do a really good job and we knew that going in. We had a plan. Two of the keys were we wanted to control the bottom of their lineup and from a hit standpoint, we mostly did. Popa got the big swing and Acal had a homer as well, but we also didn’t want to let Martinez beat us and he did. It happened to be a situation on a 3-2 count, two guys on and we had a guy ready in the bullpen. We also felt like if we throw him a breaking ball at 3-2 and if we walk him, we walk him and he just backed up on it.”
Carter Putz
On Notre Dame’s at-bats:
”I think overall like Coach had mentioned earlier, this was one of our better offensive performances of the season if you look at the ball contact and trajectory and ball flight. We hit a lot of balls hard today. Although it didn’t ultimately work out for us, I think you saw everyone competed to the very last pitch. We had a great game plan coming into today and trusted in that. Some things just didn't go our way, but overall, I thought up and down the lineup a lot of guys had a lot of great swings and made contact.”
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