Tennessee baseball blew a 7-1 lead when Mississippi State’s Hunter Hines hit a solo homer to tie the game at seven in the ninth inning Thursday night.
But the Bulldogs euphoria was short lived as Griffin Merritt took the second pitch of the last half deep to center field for a walk off homer. It was Merritt’s second walk off homer in six days and extended Tennessee’s winning streak to five games.
See everything Vols’ coach Tony Vitello said after Tennessee took the series opener.
More From RTI: Everything To Know About Tennessee’s Series Opening Walk Off Over Mississippi State
On what changed for Andrew Lindsey following a tough first inning
“It’s not like it wasn’t coming out good. I think, according to Coach (Frank) Anderson if I can quote him, his bullpen beforehand wasn’t the best, but the rain was kind of coming and going. It wasn’t ideal conditions to start the game, but you’ve got a really tough leadoff hitter, puts the ball in play and is on first base. From there, it wasn’t like things unravelled or anything. It’s just, you’re in that spot in the first inning and you’re facing a dangerous lineup. It’s really impressive the way he handled it. In particular, after Coach A’s visit — I think it was immediately after — we get a really good pitch and not a great swing, but just an unfortunate result where we get an error and it’s almost as if it made him more determined to do what he was going to do.
“He’s out there for a lot of reasons for us, but the No. 1 thing that clicked for us when we were going to try and rearrange things a little bit was toughness. And there you go.”
On what makes Griffin Merritt effective late in games
“I think his maturity. I know you guys spoke to him at some point tonight and he probably sounds like he can run for public office. We’re fortunate enough he just runs for public office in our locker room. He’s one of many guys and I said it to you guys earlier on that it kind of helped the flow and things that go on in the locker room because of his leadership. So, he’s clearly skilled as hitter and he’s also intelligent. He’s fortunate enough to have a lot of at-bats under his belt, but just because you have skill and just because you have at-bats doesn’t mean you’re going to approach the game in a mature way. We talked about that in the outfield and every game, we’re going to have our moments, including me, where maybe we’re not so mature. Maybe we’re too down or something like that, but if you do approach it in a mature fashion, it’s going to help you stay afloat in a league like this.”
On Merritt referencing a punishment following the Arkansas series and spending time with strength coach Quentin Eberhardt, and how that has helped them come together the last two weeks
“Yeah, there was some time put in and that’s his role. He makes it easy on me. He’s the executioner and the bad guy. I get to kind of lay in the weeks although maybe I have something to do with it some times, but he’s as big into team chemistry and personal growth as he is muscle growth, which is really rare for that position. He took upon himself to put in a little extra work with those guys and also just kind of talk about how they need to approach things and I’ll be dang, every team I’ve been apart of, if they’re going to be good they gotta find their best combination of being really relaxed and loose. Have fun, spit sunflower seeds at each other or whatever, but also be determined to win. There’s definitely been a lot more looseness to the group since then, but there’s been a greater sense of determination, too. And I would even go as far as saying that Tennessee Tech game — I mean hats off to them, they played excellent against us, but our guys were in it. They were more determined than they had been in previous days.”
On how encouraging it is winning different ways
“It is. You hit the nail on the head with that. But you’ve got nine innings and each pitch is valuable. In every inning there’s different things that can happen and they’re all going to tally up at the end. You can give it the ole Gipper speech and say win every inning but the bottom line is you just want to win after the ninth inning or the extra inning is over and have more runs than the other team. We did enough to do that tonight and I think what it helped was emphasize the team’s confidence and the coaching staff’s confidence in Burnsy at the end and then two, we feel like we’re a really good team in this ballpark. It’s not we can’t go on the road and play but this is a tough place to come in for opponents and we have a lot of confidence here and now we have a couple things that we can look to and say look at what we’ve done either a comeback or walk off or overcome and things like that. All things combined you’ll do whatever you can to find a way. Sometimes it’s find a way on a Friday but it’s day one today on Thursday.”
On Chase Burns responding well to ninth inning home run, if he’s Tennessee’s closer
“I think I speak for a lot of college coaches. We’re just not going to get to a point where we have a Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman and just the ninth inning is yours and you might throw four out of five games in the ninth inning or where it’s a little more set of a routine. Different parts of the game come up where you feel like this is a key part or maybe this is a big matchup. That, again, applies to a lot of teams. I know they have a real talented closer as well but we have a lot of guys we trust in the ninth if the game’s on the line. But I think for Burns we have a guy that’s built up to 100 pitches. He takes really good care of his body and he can be trusted in a lot of situations and it was pretty evident tonight— we had a big situation unraveling, a good offense and we were starting to lose our composure a little bit and he came in and calmed the seas.”
On if the team is responding to adversity better by playing loose
“I do. I think those two things combined, when you think about it, again, we’re fortunate enough to get out of the blocks with a win. If we were to date back to another rainy night against Florida and we lose on Friday, it just felt like we got punched in the gut and couldn’t catch our breath and get it back. When things don’t go well, as they did in the seventh and eighth innings for us or the back half of that game when it wasn’t ideal, when you’re loose, it makes it a little bit easier. That makes me think of Due Date when Zach Galifanakis says ‘Don’t tense up when you get into a car accident,’ so maybe there’s something to that. We don’t want any car accidents for anybody, but when you’re loose, you’re able to kind of move with what’s going on in the game. And when sudden changes happen and things like that, but also if you’re more determined it’s like ‘Alright, this didn’t go my way. I’m going to get it done this way.’ And again, Andrew Lindsey is helping us enter a series with leadership not just outs. It wasn’t very good there in the first inning and again, his determination level just cranked up.”
On the benefits of turf field in bad weather
“I do think it’s a benefit, and it carries into practice day, too. Because I mean, you want your guys to be focused during practice, and I’ll tell you what, my dad’s here and I got relatives from Chicago, I loved going to Wrigley Field when I was younger. It’s hard to have a better baseball setting than that, even when they were really bad when I was little going to those games. So, I love the tradition and the natural stuff, but when I was convinced, because it was other people who told me we needed to do this, and we’ve done it, it’s been incredible. It always looks good. Mr. Haslam spent enough money, if I’m okay to say that, where we got something totally different than most other people. It plays like a natural surface. We’ve got the dirt mound, which pitchers are going to pitch in pro ball on a dirt mound. There’s just a lot of things where it has kind of changed our world. And my favorite thing is like you’re saying, they know it’s baseball time unless there’s lightning. And that’s on practice day and on game day.”
