Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello revealed his pitching plan for game three of the Samford series in Knoxville.
After junior right-hander Nate Snead pitched 4.1 innings of relief in Saturday’s 7-3 thrilling, series-clinching win, Vitello is obviously turning elsewhere for the day three starter after Snead started last week’s series finale against Hofstra.
JUCO transfer left-hander Brandon Arvidson will ‘probably’ start the series finale, according to Vitello.
“I guess we’ll probably start [Brandon] Arvidson, even though he started earlier in the week,” Vitello said. “It was a very short outing (on Tuesday), and [he] kind of reminds me of Liam Spence’s brother, Josh Spence, started a Tuesday against us and a Sunday against us back when he was at Arizona State. The difference was I think he threw like damn near two complete games. We won’t do that with ours, but we’ve got everybody available besides those four guys that have thrown (Doyle, Franklin, Phillips, Snead). So, we’ll probably use a plethora.”
As Vitello mentioned, Arvidson started Tuesday’s midweek contest against UNC Asheville. The Dripping Springs, Texas, native allowed three hits, three runs (all earned) and one walk while striking out four in 2.0 innings.
Arvidson’s first appearance as a Vol came in Tennessee’s season-opening series against Hofstra, when he recorded a 1-2-3 inning on just seven pitches.
Tennessee is high on Arvidson given his ceiling as a hard-throwing lefty. The 6-foot-5 redshirt-sophomore will look to bounce back Sunday after Tuesday’s subpar outing.
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Behind Arvidson, many arms will be available, including highly-touted freshman Tegan Kuhns. The high-upside right-hander is yet to make his Tennessee debut because of a sickness that hindered him on opening weekend.
“Yeah, he’ll be available,” Vitello said.
In addition to Kuhns, Ryan Combs, Andrew Behnke, Thomas Crabtree and others could see innings out of the bullpen.
Tennessee is a win away from sweeping Samford and improving to 7-0 on the young season. First pitch is at 1 p.m. ET in Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
