Kentucky’s Nick Mingione shares joke borne from delays to Baton Rouge Super Regional

The first game of the Baton Rouge Super Regional between Kentucky and LSU is finally underway after roughly seven hours of weather-induced delays. It started dragging on so long that Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione was getting guff from his own players.

Mingione relayed to the ESPN broadcast team how his players started calling him the Grim Reaper because he kept delivering bad news. All told, he and his players seemed in fairly good spirits about the whole ordeal.

“Well, for a while there they started calling me the Grim Reaper. I mean Ryan Hagenow would be like, ‘Coach.’ And he was looking at me and he’s like, ‘You’re the Grim Reaper.’ I’m like, ‘I’m just delivering a message.’ I mean, c’mon. But thankful that we’re playing. Long day at the ballpark of course. But glad we’re getting the game in.”

He might not have stayed glad for long, as LSU blew the game open soon after his interview with a bevy of home runs.

And facing LSU ace Paul Skenes, Kentucky was struggling to get much going. That hadn’t been the case the first time around when the two teams met, as Kentucky scored five runs on Skenes.

Speaking to the broadcast team in the third inning, Mingione said the Wildcats can’t waste opportunities when they get pitches to hit, as Skenes doesn’t offer many.

“Well, obviously he’s got electric stuff. I think he was pretty amped up in the first there. But we gotta do what we did last inning. We gotta get the leadoff guy on. And then depending on the personnel, we had a chance right there. Leadoff guy on and we had the count 2-0 in our favor. And you know, when you get your pitch, you gotta get it. He ain’t gonna give you many. So you gotta stay on the pitch you’re hunting. And when you get it, don’t miss it. Go get it,” Mingione said.

Unfortunately for Mingione, since his interview, the Wildcats haven’t managed to do much with what Skenes has offered. Through five innings, the Wildcats have just two hits on Skenes and gotten 56 pitches out of him.

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