Tony Vitello met with the media over Zoom Thursday morning to preview Tennessee baseball’s weekend series with Texas A&M.
The Vols are looking to bounce back from a poor opening weekend of SEC play when Missouri swept Tennessee in Columbia.
Vitello talked last weekend’s sweep, how his team has responded, starting pitching and much more.
Here’s everything Vitello said Thursday morning.
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On if the team was lacking grit and determination against Missouri
“You could get into an argument no matter what team you’re coaching. When you’re down, how much fight is there or how much positive energy is there. If a basketball team is down 12 or 15 points, I don’t know what the correlation is but if you’re down a good amount it’s not the same vibes if you’re up seven or eight runs in baseball. The same thing when the weather is the way that it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re winning, losing, tied. It doesn’t matter if you’re a tough guy, a weak guy— the cold is a factor. So I think there’s maybe some of the debate you could have on how great those two categories were for us. I think if we win one or two games there we say we handled those two areas great. Because we didn’t maybe, again, you could dissect them a little bit. As far as just grit on the field and competing I don’t think that was an issue. If anything it spilled over a couple times where either there was arguments or guys saying stuff they shouldn’t say. Just a little bit going overboard the other way as far as grit is concerned.”
On how the team has responded this week, particularly guys who got benched Tuesday
“I thought their attitude and energy on Tuesday was great. There was guys who put in extra work before pregame. Pregame was good even though the lineup had been posted. Everybody wants to play no matter who you are and everybody wants to pitch. But throughout the game it was a complete game. We had that on last Tuesday as well. Maybe that’s a good trend. Maybe it was just a good day individually. I’ve tried to track the correlation between how Tuesday and the weekend goes and the bottom line is there is no consistency in that whole deal. This is a sport where, I say it all the time to you guys, there’s a heavy amount of repetitions and you’ve got to play four or five times a week at least in college. It’s even more in pro ball. So it’s not what you can do but how often can you do it.”
On what the response has been from the starting pitchers after a poor weekend, on if he’s seen extra motivation
“Not necessarily. I think Beam’s situation was unique. He threw the ball well. He made an error. We also made some defensive mistakes behind him. I think out of the three guys he had kind of the most consistent time on the mound there. Do was just not himself. I blame a little bit of it on me not recognizing, in my postgame interview I said from my vantage point they put really good swings on the ball. And they did. They got a good lineup. It’s much improved. There’s some returners but also some newcomers that are good, but they were also hitting pitches that were not located well at all. I think regardless of how Do throws this weekend it’s going to be an upgrade. He’s got that first responder quality in him where he probably has a little bit more determination to him this week, but at the same time I think he knows he’s capable of better stuff. Hopefully we look back on it and that was a blimp on the radar screen. Then (Chase) Burnsy is unique on himself as well. Just so good two weeks ago mentality wise so I think he tried to ramp that up even more. We talk about it in business or with our teams. You want to go from good to great and that’s a fantastic philosophy but in baseball sometimes good is good enough. Do it again, do it again, do it again, again. That repetition theme as opposed to I took a good swing now I’m going to take a Superman version of a good swing. I think if anything he might actually gear down a little bit from last weekend.”
On who is emerging as leaders
“Well I think it’s easier for Camden Sewell to do that now that he’s active. And not that he wasn’t a leader prior to, but when you’re not actually in the fight or getting time during a game, it’s difficult to be vocal or as much of a leader as you want to. I think Christian Scott has put in equal amount of years and time here in our program, and he’s kinda gone through a different wave of maybe trying to do too much as a leader early on, and then when things didn’t go too well, he kind of dipped a little bit, and now I think things have leveled off. Just be true to yourself, be who you are, and you know how things have gone the past few years for you as an individual, and as a teammate in the program, you know the league, so for both of those guys, I think they have a strong voice. Now we are also deep enough into the year where it’s not a crutch to say it’s your first year in the program or you haven’t been a full-time starter. So guys like Charlie taylor and Maui Ahuna, that want to be outspoken and want to voice what they have to say, they need to have the freedom to do that. One thing that was special about those leaders is that was forged over time. Those guys were always leaders in the program, but just as each year went on, they became more prominent as leaders. But, I firmly believe we are in a day and age where it takes a special Al Wilson, a guy that has all the bases covered and controls the entire locker room. If you land on that, it’s great. But I’m willing to bet most college coaches, with all their sports, say they have several leaders. A guy who keeps everybody focused, a guy who keeps everybody loose, a guy who keeps everybody in line off the field or makes sure everybody is included in things, so I think a variety of leaders is what we need, and it can come from a lot of different guys.”
On starting pitching trying to be too perfect
“This last weekend, for sure. You kind of saw it in Burns’ eyes right after… we almost scored in the first inning, but we had a quality first inning on offense. [Then] he goes out, pops up the leadoff guy, Luke Mann, who’s got like 600 career college at-bats and is a talented hitter, and we don’t catch it because we lose the ball in the sun. And you almost kinda see, ‘Ok, well, I’ll make up for it.’ And he did it in a good teammate fashion like, ‘Don’t worry about it, I got this.’ But his version of ‘I got this,’ was, ‘I’m gonna destroy every hitter.’ And when you are playing an SEC team, that is not possible. And you see it from other guys at times on our staff trying to be too perfect on occasion, but I think really just last weekend, that was one of many things that unfolded into the perfect storm. And I said it to Chris Burke and the other people that will do the telecast on Saturday, last week was very reminiscent of the trip to Lexington, Kentucky last year. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to scrap out a win like we did in Kentucky.”
On what stands out about Texas A&M
“I think you gotta be careful about putting too much value on something, but it’s a balance. You also can’t ignore the fact, yeah we didn’t win any games last week, but I think the more relevant topic today is we didn’t play our best baseball. So there should be motivation to learn from things that we have control over that caused that, and improve them or erase them, even, but then also have a little bit of that Roger Clemens competitiveness where, if the guy had a bad outing, which was rare, you could take it to the bank that the next one was gonna be good.
A&M, as a club, they go to Omaha last year, and a lot of those guys return in particular offensively, but also their Friday starter. So the challenge is going to be facing an experienced team, it’s no longer a new regime or new faces, there’s quality experience there. They’ve also won some games so they know what that looks like. Then also last weekend, they play the number one team in the country that, on paper and also by performance, is ahead of the race of everybody right now, and they (A&M) won a game. And that bleeds into a Tuesday win against Rice, so I’m sure they are as confident as ever, and we have no reason to not be confident, but we don’t have the reflection like they do of the last couple games.”
On what he would tell a casual Tennessee fan is wrong with the team right now
“Well, you hit the nail on the head. A casual Tennessee fan does not exist. It’s bleed orange entirely throughout your body, or don’t bleed at all. And that’s been fantastic, and it’s helped us win games. And part of last weekend is we’re on the road. It’s challenging wherever you go. When we’re at home, we have the benefit of playing in front of those folks. Now I will say, without disrespecting anybody, some fans are new to college baseball or new to following our program because of last year’s team, or the years prior, which is awesome, and we love it. As they get to understand the landscape of our game, there’s a lot of parity in college baseball. You don’t just go to Omaha because you wish it, or you play in the SEC or you win some games. And I could go on down that road of, there’s challenges, but fans don’t want to hear that, and I don’t want to hear that, either. You want to see success, and this team is capable of success, but it’s gonna be in a style that’s way different than last year. I don’t want to speak for Mississippi. I have no idea what they have going on, but I know they lost a lot of position guys. Arkansas, too, again, I have zero idea what’s going on there, but I assume there’s a little different flow to how they’re playing, or when they’re playing well, who are the guys that are doing it? And when they’re not playing well, where are some areas where maybe things could be improved? So ultimately what I’m getting at is, we do have our three weekend starters back, but we also are fighting a lot of battles that last year’s team did not have to fight, and also it was a different group of guys fighting those battles. It was a no-doubt, eight-man lineup in the field positionally, with some really good options at the DH spot that fluctuated a little bit. But for the most part, when kids came to the park, they knew what they were gonna do, we knew who was gonna do it for us, and it was, ‘How good can you be?’ This year we’re still trying to figure out or get some answers to some questions, and become the best version of this team that we can be, and we have not done that yet. So it’s different. Just like one of our guys talked about Missouri’s team from last year, and I kind of countered with what I thought were some strong points from scouting, it’s a different group of guys over there, and they’re improved. And we could go on — you know, I’ve mentioned a few SEC teams, it’s the same for everybody. This is 2023. It’s not ’21. It’s not ’20. It’s 2023, and we’re on our journey right now. And heck yeah, there are some things I wish were different along the way, but what we have in front of us is a Thursday practice and then a Friday game, and we get to do it in front of all those fans you just talked about.”
On SEC game times being down, his thoughts on pace of play rules
On Chase Dollander’s first inning struggles this season
“I think part of it is if you remove last weekend (Mizzou), on the whole, you’re facing the top of the lineup so you’re facing some quality hitters and it’s been on a couple of occasions, we could have made a defensive play behind him and did not. Now it’s a team effort, so he’s contributing to maybe a guy hitting the ball hard and a guy couldn’t make a diving catch or something like that. I think across the country when all baseball games start on Friday, the coaches are going to have their best on-base guy in either the one or two spot, their best hitters in the three or four, maybe the two. Everybody varies a little bit, so that’s what you’re facing in the first inning and we need everybody locked in on defense behind Doe. He needs to throw his best stuff up there and trust it because it’s pretty good. They may push one across, they may not, but in combination, that’s what we need out of everything. It hasn’t all been there. I don’t think it’s been one thing with him or anything crazy like that. It’s just we need that combination in play.
“If you’re going to talk last weekend. Whether it’s circumstantial. Whether it’s just that one weekend. I’ve been very blessed to be around a lot of first-rounders or top-five-rounders and I don’t know that I’ve coached many guys that can go a whole 16, 18 weeks without an outing they wish they could flush down the toilet. Last week, for whatever reason was good swings, tip of the hat to the opponent, but it takes two to tango and he just wasn’t himself.”
On what he’s seen from Hunter Ensley lately as he’s received more opportunities
“I think he’s deserving. He’s been with us for quite some time. He’s had to battle through some injuries. I think the repetitions or the opportunities are increasing because the way he does things when he’s out there. Statistically, I can’t rattle off what he’s got going on, but when he’s out there, if he does make a mistake, it’s an aggressive one. Or it’s one where he’s got conviction in what he’s doing. He’s not afraid to run into the outfield wall. He’s not afraid to compete in the box. Regardless of the result, the way he does things is encouraging for the coaching staff and makes us want to put him back out there.
“The other thing for him, we’ve talked about the leadership thing. As each day goes by, he comes more and more out of his shell in who he really is. He’s got some personality to him. He’s got some fight to him. That’s all complimented by he’s got some skill, too. It’s not like he can’t play. I think as each day goes forward, his opportunities will increase. Particularly as he — come out of his shell is the best way I can say it — but the more he’s just true to himself and that personality and that ability to play comes out.”
