HOOVER, Ala. -- There's Zack Hess the persona, and there's the Zack Hess who has to talk later about what that persona just did.
There's the Hess known as "Wild Thing" -- the guy stomping off the mound with his shoulders stretched out so far his swinging arms never touch his sides -- and there's the even-keeled, hyper-intelligent person breaking down what he did or didn't do well.
Paul Mainieri sees that separation. The LSU baseball coach sees the guy full of fire on the mound, and he sees the young man struggling to figure out what's been going wrong in recent weeks and why teams are on top of his pitching patterns.
Because as much as Saturday's (May 26) press conference was about Hess' dominant 7-inning performance to beat Arkansas 2-1 and advance to the SEC Tournament finals, it was also about the few weeks that got him there.
In Hess' last six outings he gave up 21 earned runs in 29 innings. He pitched three innings of relief Tuesday against Mississippi State and allowed two runs.
As far back as the May 4 Arkansas game, Hess knew he was tipping his pitches. He could tell teams were on to the fact he just threw his fastball and slider, and they knew when one was coming.
He sat in pitching coach Alan Dunn's office and tried to figure out a game plan. The two of them and Mainieri decided going into Saturday his changeup needed to become a greater factor.
And after each and every rough Hess outing, there was Mainieri saying the same thing: "I don't worry about Zack Hess."
Mainieri stated over and over that Hess is the one player who works so hard, puts so much time in and cares so much that his poor outings are never what concern him. He always knows Hess will find a way to figure it out.
"People sometimes are quick to criticize," Mainieri said Saturday. "When you're a coach, and you know kids, you know who to believe in and you know who to stick with because you know what they're made of. You know what their work ethic is.
"That's why I would never ever ever give up on Zack Hess."
So Hess went out on four days rest and sat down the first six batters he faced against Arkansas, one of the best lineups in the country.
Then a weather delay had him sitting and resting for more than an hour. Mainieri hesitated to bring him back out there. Hess had too bright a future and too many big games to come to risk his health. He looked Hess in the eyes and said "Dont try to be a hero. I want to know if you don't feel 100 percent."
Hess, though, said his 2017 season as a reliever prepared him for this. He's used to little notice and little rest and getting his arm ready quickly.
He went back out and struck out one batter before Arkansas' Jared Gates hit a solo home run to take a 1-0 lead.
That was the only hit Hess allowed. He kept going and going and flat out dominating this lethal lineup, striking out seven and allowing just three baserunners in seven innings.
"We just walked into a buzz saw," Gates said.
Yet this flamboyant Hess persona on the mound hardly spoke about himself after the game. He even went out of his way to credit the way Mainieri gets his teams to succeed in the postseason before talking about his own success.
Eventually, he was asked so directly he couldn't avoid it, and he broke down how the opponents were figuring him out and the need to get the changeup going.
"If you want to be a successful starting pitcher, you have to have three pitches you can throw for strikes and you have to get ahead of guys," he said. "It's not rocket science."
Then Hess and his teammates left the press conference, and all that was left was Mainieri raving about how Hess handled those questions, how he handled his struggles.
But maybe more revealing than any of the words Mainieri said was the look he gave Hess when first sat down next to him for the press conference.
He poked Hess to get his attention, looked him dead in the eye and shook his hand. Zack Hess did good Saturday.