Tennessee baseball had its worst day of the season on Saturday as Texas A&M swept the doubleheader in Knoxville to claim the weekend series.
The Aggies earned a 9-3 win in game one of the doubleheader before run-ruling the Vols 17-6 in game two of the doubleheader. It marked Tennessee’s first run-rule and series loss of the season.
Following the two losses, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello met with the media and discussed what went wrong, a bad day for the pitching staff and more. Here’s everything Vitello said.
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On a summary of what went wrong today
“They played better than us. We happened to play two games in one day and it was not a good day for us and it was a very good day for them. And maybe we spoke that into existence or maybe I spoke that into existence. You get tired of hearing, you know, negative things about a good program. And like I told you guys, good coaching staff and good players. So, they beat us today in pretty much about every facet. Although you could take the time to analyze poor decisions. Maybe a mistake at-bat or this could have been better base running or pitching. But you know, it’s really simple. At the end of the day, they played better than we did.”
On what he hopes the team learned this weekend to carry forward
“Know how to approach a doubleheader. Know how to approach an entire series. Know how to write your own narrative and not listen to, with all due respect, you guys. Hard working group in here, but you guys aren’t in the dugout. You guys aren’t playing. You guys don’t know the rosters as well, nor do the fans. So, you got to write your own narrative. And then the other thing is, we got talent, but we damn sure don’t have – again, we know the rosters, we don’t have the best roster in the country. That’s not even close. But what we’ve had this year is a good group of guys. Defensively, pitching wise, hitting all complement each other a little bit. And we’ve had a little bit of grit to us and we’ve had some other intangibles like team chemistry that have helped elevate our play a little bit. But we can’t show up and rely on what’s on paper.”
On if he felt like guys were pressing at the plate
“Yeah, a little bit. But it’s easy to, should have used guys in different orders of, as far as pitching goes. It’s easy to highlight stuff like that after the fact when the scoreboard says what it does. But yeah, their guys stayed to the ball better. Their guys took calmer swings. Their guys backspun more balls. The flow of the game is one thing. If anything, we could have done a better job against [Justin] Lampkin. I think the best guy they got down there is the guy who finished the first game. So, you got to do a better job against Lampkin if you want to have a chance to win. So, if anything, maybe the at-bats could have been better in that situation. But you know, when the game is messy like that, it’s hard to say a guy is doing something wrong or not.”
On if it is snap and clear or if there needs to be something said to the team
“No, I mean I think there was a little bit of a funk in the air, whatever it was. Whether it’s a hangover from last night and I don’t have anything that would sense that. I said rope-a-dope. I don’t think they know what that was that Muhammad Ali used. I don’t think anyone disrespected those guys. But again, the nonsense of ‘are they capable of doing anything’ or ‘are they good or not?’ All you got to do is look at the first three guys in the lineup is what I told the team. But I don’t think all that was the case. Just, we didn’t play very well. Nate Snead is a pretty reliable guy. He just didn’t have a great day. Tegan [Kuhns] and [Brayden] Krenzel have been applauded for how well they’ve done. Didn’t have a great day. And you could complain about a few breaks. Ball hits off Krenzel’s spike and ball goes in Ensley’s glove and then something happens. But you got to take advantage of those if you’re going to win and they took full advantage of what opportunities they had.”
On if it is tough for a coach to try and do too much after a game or day that is completely against the norm
“Well, I don’t think you want to leave it there, otherwise it’s maybe time to go to Mexico and retire a little bit. Or find a different sport to play. But I do think you got to put things into perspective. And so, the things I think you could take from perspective is again, how do you approach a doubleheader? If you are able to get a shutout the night before, how do you approach the next day and what do you do when it’s not going well as an individual or as a team? Yeah, it’s a constant deal. I mean, this is a game more than any – maybe golf people talk about that. I don’t know anything about that. But it’s like rubik’s cube man, you got to constantly kind of be moving things around and you ain’t ever going to get all the panels on the same side. So, you might as well just keep trying to evolve and keep trying to figure things out. So, there’s a lot of information from today to process, but yeah, you do have to have perspective. You can’t go home and bang your head up against the wall. You got to see where we’re at with this season and then hope that we’re more determined than ever this week and we make it a good week. Because it will be a tough week and the week after, that’ll be tough too.”
On if there were any common themes with the pitching staffs struggles
“Good at bats. It sounded like a lot of pitches middle. I know fans were complaining about the umpires. We complained— the thing I went out there had nothing to do with balls or strikes, but by the time the game is over, this is what I’ll say, they’re (umpires) all gonna end up with about the same score and they’re good scores. So the zone is fine. I think if there was complaining about where our pitchers were locating pitches, it would be middle. But we always want our guys to attack the strike zone and we’d rather have them do that than air on the side of missing off the plate. But again, when we were in the middle of the plate, they made us pay. So there’s a lot to say was bad for us and we need to do a better job and we need to, like I said, be more determined. But there’s also a lot to, I guess tip your cap. I don’t want to do that, but you know what I mean.”
On what they need to do going forward to be more prepared for doubleheaders
“It’s different. It’s different. I mean it’s baseball. We did it in the fall, they were technically double headers. It’s kind of a different deal, but I would say the biggest thing is game two should be pretty similar to what a game two is, talking about today. And then in between it matters. If you play junior college baseball, there’s a ton of doubleheaders and more times than not game two’s affected by game one. And I don’t know, again, maybe if a ball gets called a catch or, I mean I doubt it, but you’re supposed to have 45 minutes (between games) it turn into an hour for whatever reason and then the game starts. You better have a good mindset based off of what the first game was. And the way our guys should have responded after the first game was, again, be more determined to get after it and have a little grit to them. And it seemed a little casual the first couple innings. If there’s any one complaint, again to me, we just got man to man, they beat us. But if there’s any one complaint, it was a little casual, the first couple innings of game two in particular for following a loss.”
On what about this team gives him confidence this won’t linger
“I think there’s a variety of leadership from guys, guys do it in different ways and you hear it. I mean, it’s not just vocal, but you hear it and overall it’s pretty good. Some of it could be dumb or something you would maybe do different if you were the coach, but I think there’s good leadership and there’s a bunch of guys when they’re kind of pushed and challenged, the best in them comes out.
And then also it’s a young team and that’s not an excuse, but it’s a young team around each other. We’re still growing, I think as a total group, but there’s young players within that team and some guys got their first SEC action, so as they pile up reps, I think they’ll get better.”
