Rob Childress previews Mississippi State, discusses importance of team defense

Key notes from Rob Childress interview

• Sam Houston State won two of three games this weekend against Connecticut. They are incredibly well coached and they need all the wins they can get. We’ll have our hands full. It only takes a spark to start a fire and get things rolling.
   
• We’ll need Chris Weber to get off to a good start against Sa Houston State, but we’ll also limit his pitch count so he’s available against Mississippi State. Since the Kentucky series, he’s been as hot as anyone we have on the mound.
   
• We didn’t play well enough against Ole Miss. We had good starts on the mound. We had some moments offensively. We have to be able to hang our hats on pitching and defense, but we had seven errors over the weekend. We just have to play a little bit better. We have to take care of the little things. We walked 17 guys.
   
• We walked 17 batters and they walked three. That was the difference. That is a recipe for not getting it done.
   
• John Doxakis has done a wonderful job is managing games. Getting us into the eighth inning is tough especially when you walk five batters. I thought he was really good. He’s done a great job the past five weeks and given us a chance to win every game he’s pitched.
   
• We asked an awful lot of Kasey Kalich, putting in him some tough spots. For him, he has to be able to land that second pitch and get his slider going again. We’re looking forward to getting him back on the mound.
   
• Mississippi State is really good offensively, leading the SEC hitting well over .315. They have some physicality up and down the lineup. They also have a lefty pitcher in Ethan Small that leads the SEC in strikeouts. Everybody goes through this grind in the SEC. It’s not about having setbacks but about how you respond to it.
   
• We have to play better defense. That’s something we were great at the first half of the season and it got us lots of wins. We have to take care of things on defense if we want to have a chance to win a lot of games. We also have to play to our potential on offense.