Tennessee baseball second baseman Christian Moore met with the media following the Vols’ 13-11 series-clinching win over Kentucky in Lexington.
Moore had a three-homer, six-RBI day in Tennessee’s victory, his first three-homer day of his career.
The Brooklyn, New York, native also took the lead in the program HR record race and now leads teammate Blake Burke by two blasts.
See everything Moore said about his legacy game on Sunday below.
On when is the last time he had a three homer game:
“Honestly, I was thinking about that, maybe little league? I don’t know. I know I didn’t do it in high school, so probably little league.”
On leading the HR record chase with Blake Burke:
“It’s pretty cool. I think Burke’s going to catch me, and we’re going to go back-and-forth the whole season, and that’ll be pretty cool. But for right now, I’m the champion, and I’ll try to ride with it as long as I can.”
On how cool it feels to have the sole lead for the HR record after Burke took the lead back on Saturday:
“I thought he was going to do it today (take the lead back). I might make fun of him for it a little bit today and tomorrow.”
On what’s been working for him at the plate:
“Trying to stay humble and even-keeled. Staying with my work that I do every day and try not to change as much, and just try to see good pitches up there. On defense, do the same thing. Keep the ball in front and make plays.”
On what he learned about the team this weekend:
“That we will never ever give up against a team. On the road, at home, doesn’t matter. Obviously, they punched us in the mouth early in the game, we came back, they punched back, it was back-and-forth. To beat this team… they’re really, really good. They might not have all the glamor and all that stuff, but they play hard-nosed baseball, and it definitely was a great game today.”
On what was said amongst the team post-game:
“Just the boys being boys, that’s all. That’s all we’ll say.”
More From RTI: Everything Tennessee HC Tony Vitello Said After Series Clinching Victory At Kentucky
On how encouraging it was to have multiple guys contribute in a big game:
“This team has the amount of depth that… however much depth we want, we can have. We have guys on guys coming from different programs, guys who have been here, guys who have grinded their tails off to be in this position. So, for guys like Peebs (Cannon Peebles) to come off the bench and get a sac fly, a walk and a score is huge for us. And he’s someone that obviously was highly recruited, came here and has been struggling as of late. But, he had two great ABs today that helped us win the game. So that’s definitely huge.”
On Kirby Connell and Marcus Phillips’ performances:
“Kirby [Connell] being Kirby. For the last five years he’s been here – I’ve been with him for three – he does that all the time. He’ll give you one batter, he’ll give you six, give you four innings, doesn’t matter. And Marcus [Phillips] coming in and closing the door was definitely good. Can definitely put him in different situations now for sure. He started for us last week and came in and closed it today. Definitely gives Coach V (Tony Vitello) a lot of options.”
On if he was looking for a specific pitch in the ABs he hit a HR:
“Yes and no. I knew on one of them, I was up in the count. Just trying to get a heater. On one… Didn’t know what they were trying to do to me. I knew one guy was a really big slider guy, and I knew I was going to get it because that’s what they wanted to throw to me, and he kind of just left it over the middle.”
On how big Marcus Phillips’ performance was for him moving forward:
“You see the guy. He throws 97 (mph) like he’s not even trying. A lot of it is just him having that confidence and being that guy. And that comes. That comes with repetition and being out there and understanding that. He’s definitely the guy that… if I was him, I would go out there and try to throw 102 (mph) with that body type. But, we’re not all the same.”
On how great it was to see Kavares Tears hit a big home run:
“KT (Kavares Tears) is one of – if not [the best] – one of our best hitters. Might be our best hitter. Just purely. He doesn’t swing at balls and makes a lot of hard contact. For that to happen, I mean to me, it didn’t feel like he was struggling. This was a really good pitching team, and they called a really good game. He just had some tough breaks, and right there, he let it loose. Had a really good at-bat again. Eight-pitch at-bat then hit a homer. It was super huge for us. You know, leaning on their starter and then giving that – I think it was the go-ahead or tying [homer] – but super huge for us. We just want to add runs on Sunday, and that’s what he did.”
