Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello met with the media in Oxford following the Vols’ 8-5 series-evening loss to Ole Miss Saturday.
Vitello shared his thoughts on the loss, discussing what went wrong overall, Marcus Phillips’ command issues, Ole Miss’ success on the base-paths, the lack of hitting with runners in scoring position and more.
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Watch Vitello’s entire post-game press conference below.
“Last night was so emotional. Maybe he came out and tried to do too much and replicate what Liam (Doyle) was doing rather than just be himself,” Tony Vitello said on what went wrong with Marcus Phillips’ outing. “But that’s an on-the-spot, dramatic theory. The only reason I say that is because once he was a little tamed down, the velo was down and he didn’t have as much gas in the tank, he just kind of pitched and put together his best inning, which was the third inning.
“And then the fourth inning because, similar to last week, we’re in game two, we feel like we have a full bullpen, and the game was in balance already pretty early – runs were at a premium if you will – we decided to go to the bullpen.”
The Vols will look to clinch the series in a Sunday rubber match at Swayze Field. First pitch is at 3 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.
