Ryan Waldschmidt (Vicky Graff Photo)
Ryan Waldschmidt didn’t have a hit in UK’s regular-season ending loss to Vanderbilt or the SEC Tournament opening loss to LSU. However, he made up for that Thursday against Arkansas.
Not only did he homer once, but he hit two home runs and drove in three runs in the 9-6 win over Arkansas.
“Yeah, the past few weeks — or not even the past few weeks, the past two games, I guess, I just felt a little bit late,” he said after the game. “And that, whenever I feel like I’m not on, it usually is the problem, a little bit late.
“Today I just made an effort just to be early or on time. And I think that I did that. I think I fought a few balls off down the line pull side, which, when I do that, I feel like I’m good and I’m on it. Then when I got a pitch in the zone, I was on time.
“So that was the biggest thing for me was just being on time today.”
Kentucky shared the SEC regular-season championship with Tennessee but had just one hit in the 11-0 loss to LSU Wednesday.
“This morning we were in our team meeting, and Coach Ming brought up Buster Douglas and how he fought Mike Tyson and he won,” Waldschmidt said. “And today we go out there against a really good team, and you’re facing a really good starting pitcher, and you just gotta do what it takes to win. You got to just find a way.
“Especially when your backs are on the wall, you’re either going home or you’re moving on. I think we did a really good job of just being relentless, just staying on the attack all night and trying to find a way to win.
“And when you do that and you just give yourself up for the team and just try and do everything you can to win a game, I think you have a lot of success.”
Arkansas not only started its ace but also used its top relievers and Waldschmidt said that gives UK’s hitters more confidence knowing NCAA Tournament play starts next week.
“Anytime when you can face top-end arms, it just makes you better. As long as you have the mindset of failure is okay and failure is a way to learn,” he said. “You’re going to lose. You’re going to have bad at-bats. You’re going to just not win a lot of the time.
“But if you can learn from it and you can grow from it, it makes you a lot better when you go face someone else who might not be as highly considered as a top-end arm. But it definitely helps when you face these guys every day.”
