Tennessee’s regular season came to a close Saturday evening with the Vols splitting a doubleheader against South Carolina to finish the regular season 38-18 (16-14 SEC) and earn the seven-seed in the SEC Tournament.
The Vols let game two of the series get away from the late after Tony Vitello pulled Chase Dollander for Chase Burns. Tennessee bounced back with a rubber match victory as Drew Beam was fantastic and the Vols’ bats exploded late.
Here’s everything Vitello said after Tennessee’s first road series win of the season.
More From RTI: See Tennessee Baseball’s SEC Tournament Draw
On what allowed them to respond to a tough loss in game two and win game three
“I think just all of the places we’ve been physically and mentally. It’s been about everywhere. The one box we hadn’t really checked was to win two out of three on the road, whether it be in Arizona or a conference game and we did that. I think we did it because of all of the things that preceded it, allowed the guys to put themselves in position to just kind of reset. You know, it’s a grudge match and when Burnsy (Chase Burns) has come out of the pen for us the last few times, it’s electrified our crowd when we’re at home, but also our dugout and our guys are into that game. It’s a back and forth deal. Very easy to be dejected and disappointed which I think they were, but then after a while the guys started to loosen up and just talk about what they had in front of them, so all of those things combined was a good formula.”
On his message to the guys in between games
“Kind of the same thing. Just be where you need to be and what you have right in front of you is an opportunity to win a road series. There’s a couple of places we traveled to this year where we would have killed to be in that position, but we came away with not a whole lot. And then the two trips in SEC play, and even in Arizona, where I thought we were ourselves or at least at that point in season, a version of ourselves. We didn’t really have a good opportunity to do so, so it was just about being where you need to be and it’s very easy to be in the moment of being overly emotional about the loss or didn’t get go this way, or I made a mistake and things like that. All they did was focus on what was in front of them. Kind of like we showed up on the buss after sitting in the hotel for awhile. They just kind of had that vibe they were ready to play ball whenever the umpire so.”
On how important it was for Beam to work through some trouble in the early innings and allow the offense to settle in
“It allowed for a flow to the game. It wasn’t like a no-hitter and he was just breezing through guys, but it was reminiscent of what he did a lot last year and it was certainly a key to the game because every time the guys came in the dugout, they were jazzed up about working out of a jam, or if it was a quick inning because he did have a couple of those. You saw the determination on the kid’s face after last week. Whatever it was went awry. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.”
On why he elected to start Drew Beam in the series finale
“We were looking at what do we have to do over the course of the weekend and having both games combined today and having them be seven inning games probably complicated things too much. But really, if you look at it, I think all three guys could have thrown complete games. I don’t know if we win all three, but they did a good job and maybe we over-complicate things because it is two sevens and that changes things a little bit. And then of course we have a tournament waiting for us and then another tournament after that if you want to look at (Andrew) Lindsey’s deal. I got asked by a lot of people, ‘what, you didn’t want him to throw 10 more pitches?’ He’s got a bright future when he’s done with us, but hopefully we can get him the ball a few more times.”
On what made Chase Dollander so effective and why they decided to pull him in the sixth inning
“I think he just keeps getting better as he goes and that’s the one real positive. I have an unfortunate loss and the second game the win takes the bitterness out of that game but heck if you want to say what if this happens, what if that happens, if you leave him out there he’s going pretty good. He’s probably going as good as he has all year long. A lineup that I think has as many home runs as we do and he was grooving. Two seven inning games, do you kick yourself if you don’t use Sewell, Halvorsen, Burns but at the end of the day it’s probably best that we just play ball and see what’s in front of us and (if) we have to go to those guys we will. I think we know we have those guys fresh and any time we want to use them they’ll be the guy but right now our starters are throwing the ball as well as they can.”
On the significance of having the pitching fresh heading into a quick turnaround at SEC Tournament
“It opens up more possibilities. We’re not going to throw guys until they tell us they’re ready but it opens up more possibilities and nothing really matters except for Tuesday’s game for our club. It also affects guys, you know, down the road. I don’t think our run in the (SEC) tournament last year had anything to do with not going as far as we wanted to (in the NCAA Tournament). One thing it does require you to do is use a multitude of pitchers and have those guys throwing their best stuff. I think the way the season’s gone we haven’t really gotten anybody past 100 pitches if you want to look at it or any crazy stuff. It’s a good group. They’re obviously well coached. I think he (Frank Anderson) is the best in the country for a reason. That group is ready to go. If our group plays defense behind them and have kind of relaxed at-bats like they did in game one and game three I think we’ll have a good chance. And they had relaxed at-bats in game two too, to be fair. (Jack) Mahoney, when he gets that look in his eye he’s pretty good.”
On how he’d assess where this team is at entering the postseason
“I think if you compare to last year which we’ve said all along is not fair, if you kind of want to look at a different way to go about it we have here with this group a bunch of lessons learned and a lot of momentum. Maybe kind of coming together in the locker room in different ways and of course in the dugout and kind of marching forward. I think the question you have to have over your head is have we played our best ball yet? And I don’t think that’s necessarily the answer would be yes. So kind of that momentum forward is key and obviously any win you get in the league puts you in a better position for whatever the NCAA decides to do.”
