Some more quotes from yesterday's postgame interview.
UCF as a team is batting .331 with two players hitting at an over .400 clip (Tommy Williams .416, Dylan Moore .404). I asked Rooney if he thought in the preseason this offense would be that good.
"I know we had great expectations of our offense. I don't really look at what we need to do statistically. We certainly all knew we had the capability of having a great offense with so many returning players and great returning players, but those guys have gotten better. We say this all the time, if you remember even in the fall, just because we have so many returning players from our team this past year, it doesn't ensure success. It doesn't mean anything. If they didn't get better, it doesn't mean anything. Those guys got better, particularly our offense. Those guys have done a terrific job."
Rooney then continued with a statement about pitching, which right now is the biggest question mark on this team. UCF is pretty solid with Rodgers, Finfrock, Howell and Hukari and maybe now Parker Thomas out of the pen, but others have been inconsistent or in the case of Kyle Marsh, inexperienced.
"Obviously, the one thing that needs to happen which controls a lot of our destiny in my opinion is our command of the strike zone. That is No. 1. I just told the team that. That is No. 1. We've got to command the strike zone better. We need to be a little bit more consistent. Bright spots out there today. Eric Hepple came in and gave us a chance, put up some zeroes and did a terrific job out there. Parker Thomas back to back days did a nice job. We need more consistency out of our pitching and we need to command the strike zone much, much better."
Late in the Sunday game vs. Fairfield, I spotted Zach Rodgers headed down to the bullpen and I phrased my question assuming he was going down there for "bullpen work" and not necessarily being primed to come in and pitch. He didn't have to enter the game, but Rooney said he was getting ready. So what's the plan for Rodgers moving forward - back to the weekend rotation or in a bullpen role?
"I think I'm going to make that decision in the next couple days. I'll tell you this, Rodgers wasn't throwing a bullpen (on Sunday vs. Fairfield). He was getting ready. If we needed him today in the last inning, if it became a save situation, tying run at the plate. I knew in my mind going into it he was available today, limited obviously. Rodgers always wants the ball. Parker (Thomas) did a great job. I'm not quite sure yet exactly what we're going to do. I can tell you this, I've got so much confidence in all those guys. Rodgers can start for us, he can close. Cre Finfrock certainly has established himself as a terrific starter. Robby Howell has been very good. So we've got some options as far as that goes. I'll decide tomorrow what we're going to do on Tuesday."
I think we could likely see Kyle Marsh starting at Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday, just as he's started the previous two Tuesdays. I also asked Rooney whether it was possible Marsh could eventually be transitioned into a weekend starting role, giving that Sunday starter he's been looking for that could free up Rodgers to be that closer that I think Rooney would ultimately love to have.
"The bottom line as of now, when you evaluate it, we need to clean up our bullpen," Rooney said. "When I look at one area of our team, there's 56 games so you're going to have ups and downs. Our offense has been doing terrific, but some games we won't score 6 or 7 runs so the pitching needs to pick them up. The bullpen needs to get cleaned up. Whether it's Marsh or Rodgers (starting on a weekend), those are things I'm looking at. I think next week we'll have a pretty good idea. The difference this week is we only have one midweek game. The rest of the way we won't have two midweeks, so guys can get into more of a routine."
In the fall, I think Rooney was hopeful Mitchell Tripp (JUCO teammate of Derrick Salberg, sat out last year recovering from Tommy John surgery) would be a weekend starter. When he's healthy, he's certainly got the stuff. But he tweaked his arm again during the preseason and has been out. I asked Rooney for a status update yesterday.
"He's still out for a little while. Rehabbing. Tough to say. He's in the rehab right now. I feel safe to say that he's still a couple weeks away from being potentially out there. I would say it's kind of a week to week situation. We've still got a couple weeks away from really evaluating it further."
Given this is the final week of non-conference play with Presbyterian coming to town this coming weekend, I asked whether he'd like to nail down a starting rotation and lineup before beginning American play with Houston the following weekend.
"Yes and no. Obviously we're excited about going into conference. Listen, we're playing for a championship when you get into conference, don't get me wrong. We're playing for an at-large bid. We've got a long way to go. Every game matters for us. We want to do well in conference. Obviously we finished in second place last year. We're trying to win the thing. The conference is important, it's extremely important to try to win a championship and we play in a terrific conference, but every game matters. That's the way I approach it. We're going to line up our best guys for whatever game we need to line them up for. Yes, once we get to Houston we should have a pretty good idea of what we want. Our lineup, we've just got a lot of guys that are swinging the bats. We're going to move a lot of guys in and out. I think that's good because it keeps guys fresh."
UCF as a team is batting .331 with two players hitting at an over .400 clip (Tommy Williams .416, Dylan Moore .404). I asked Rooney if he thought in the preseason this offense would be that good.
"I know we had great expectations of our offense. I don't really look at what we need to do statistically. We certainly all knew we had the capability of having a great offense with so many returning players and great returning players, but those guys have gotten better. We say this all the time, if you remember even in the fall, just because we have so many returning players from our team this past year, it doesn't ensure success. It doesn't mean anything. If they didn't get better, it doesn't mean anything. Those guys got better, particularly our offense. Those guys have done a terrific job."
Rooney then continued with a statement about pitching, which right now is the biggest question mark on this team. UCF is pretty solid with Rodgers, Finfrock, Howell and Hukari and maybe now Parker Thomas out of the pen, but others have been inconsistent or in the case of Kyle Marsh, inexperienced.
"Obviously, the one thing that needs to happen which controls a lot of our destiny in my opinion is our command of the strike zone. That is No. 1. I just told the team that. That is No. 1. We've got to command the strike zone better. We need to be a little bit more consistent. Bright spots out there today. Eric Hepple came in and gave us a chance, put up some zeroes and did a terrific job out there. Parker Thomas back to back days did a nice job. We need more consistency out of our pitching and we need to command the strike zone much, much better."
Late in the Sunday game vs. Fairfield, I spotted Zach Rodgers headed down to the bullpen and I phrased my question assuming he was going down there for "bullpen work" and not necessarily being primed to come in and pitch. He didn't have to enter the game, but Rooney said he was getting ready. So what's the plan for Rodgers moving forward - back to the weekend rotation or in a bullpen role?
"I think I'm going to make that decision in the next couple days. I'll tell you this, Rodgers wasn't throwing a bullpen (on Sunday vs. Fairfield). He was getting ready. If we needed him today in the last inning, if it became a save situation, tying run at the plate. I knew in my mind going into it he was available today, limited obviously. Rodgers always wants the ball. Parker (Thomas) did a great job. I'm not quite sure yet exactly what we're going to do. I can tell you this, I've got so much confidence in all those guys. Rodgers can start for us, he can close. Cre Finfrock certainly has established himself as a terrific starter. Robby Howell has been very good. So we've got some options as far as that goes. I'll decide tomorrow what we're going to do on Tuesday."
I think we could likely see Kyle Marsh starting at Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday, just as he's started the previous two Tuesdays. I also asked Rooney whether it was possible Marsh could eventually be transitioned into a weekend starting role, giving that Sunday starter he's been looking for that could free up Rodgers to be that closer that I think Rooney would ultimately love to have.
"The bottom line as of now, when you evaluate it, we need to clean up our bullpen," Rooney said. "When I look at one area of our team, there's 56 games so you're going to have ups and downs. Our offense has been doing terrific, but some games we won't score 6 or 7 runs so the pitching needs to pick them up. The bullpen needs to get cleaned up. Whether it's Marsh or Rodgers (starting on a weekend), those are things I'm looking at. I think next week we'll have a pretty good idea. The difference this week is we only have one midweek game. The rest of the way we won't have two midweeks, so guys can get into more of a routine."
In the fall, I think Rooney was hopeful Mitchell Tripp (JUCO teammate of Derrick Salberg, sat out last year recovering from Tommy John surgery) would be a weekend starter. When he's healthy, he's certainly got the stuff. But he tweaked his arm again during the preseason and has been out. I asked Rooney for a status update yesterday.
"He's still out for a little while. Rehabbing. Tough to say. He's in the rehab right now. I feel safe to say that he's still a couple weeks away from being potentially out there. I would say it's kind of a week to week situation. We've still got a couple weeks away from really evaluating it further."
Given this is the final week of non-conference play with Presbyterian coming to town this coming weekend, I asked whether he'd like to nail down a starting rotation and lineup before beginning American play with Houston the following weekend.
"Yes and no. Obviously we're excited about going into conference. Listen, we're playing for a championship when you get into conference, don't get me wrong. We're playing for an at-large bid. We've got a long way to go. Every game matters for us. We want to do well in conference. Obviously we finished in second place last year. We're trying to win the thing. The conference is important, it's extremely important to try to win a championship and we play in a terrific conference, but every game matters. That's the way I approach it. We're going to line up our best guys for whatever game we need to line them up for. Yes, once we get to Houston we should have a pretty good idea of what we want. Our lineup, we've just got a lot of guys that are swinging the bats. We're going to move a lot of guys in and out. I think that's good because it keeps guys fresh."
