LSU’s Derek Curiel Reacts to Beating Arkansas

The Tigers handily beat the Razorbacks 4-1 in the opening game of the College World Series. After the game, Derek Curiel talked about pitcher Kade Anderson’s performance. He said, “Yeah, Kade's been great. Super happy for him. He's a great teammate. I look up to him a lot. We played when we were younger. He's always been dominant on the mound. He used to swing the stick pretty good too.

I'm super happy for him. He's been great. He just does what he does. It's just business as usual. So I'm just super happy for him. He competes his butt off and I'm proud of him.”

Curiel also spoke about his success against left-handed pitchers this season. He said, “Baseball is a game of failure. Just trying to my best to stay there on the lefties. And chief and I got to work keeping my shoulder in there and trying to stay on balls. And just having fun and learning from my mistakes and just getting better every day. That's what baseball's about.”

Finally, Derek talked about his mindset going into this game. He said, “Yeah, trusting myself with two strikes, whether that's taking or swinging. I know, with my hand-eye coordination, I could be able to battle in any count. So I'm never defeated in the box, even when I go down 0-2 on two pretty ugly swings, probably my two ugliest swings of the year.

But just having confidence and sticking to my approach and knowing that he was going to go back to that pitch, staying on it.”