Nick Mingione describes Kentucky's offensive approach, explains how it helps in Omaha

Known for its car-crash style, Kentucky baseball boasts one of the most unique offensive units in the country this season. They’ve proven to be an issue for opposing infields all season long.

That trend has continued in Omaha as the bunting, base-stealing Bat ‘Cats showed that they’re more than just a flashy offense. Kentucky went on to score four of its five runs against NC State in Saturday’s College World Series opener off three home runs en route to a 5-4 victory in extra innings.

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“That’s why I started just calling our offense a whatever-it-takes type offense because our guys are so talented,” Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione said after the win. “… When we get production up and down our lineup, that’s us at our best, and we can do it in all different ways. And you know what? There’s a lot of coaching that goes into that. But for the players to be able to execute all those different things, we have to be very intentional.”

Even when his players don’t record the hits they want at the plate, Mingione also gauges his player’s performances in terms of how good was the total at-bat. Ryan Waldschmidt went 0 for 4 at the plate with a walk, but Mingione graded him 3 for 5 in quality. The same goes for Emilien Petri, who was graded 5 for 5 quality at-bats despite going 1 for 3 with two walks on the stat sheet.

Kentucky got about as quality of an at-bat as it gets in the 10th inning from Mitchell Daly, whose solo home run ended up being the difference in the game as UK walked it off to win their first CWS game in program history. He was 2 for 5 at the plate and wasn’t not struck out in any of his at-bats.

“The attention to detail by the players, their focus, their execution. It’s definitely not easy, but boy can they execute at a high level,” Mingione continued. “And I just want to make sure that everybody knows it’s not all about bunting. The whatever-it-takes type of offense, please, because bunting is a small piece to it, but to your point, we can hit homers too.”

Kentucky will look to continue this trend as they advance to take on SEC foe Texas A&M in the winner’s bracket of the College World Series with a shot at the national semifinal on the line. The first pitch is scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m. ET live on ESPN.