Tennessee baseball dropped its series finale 8-4 at Georgia Sunday afternoon as the Vols failed to earn their first road series win of the season.
Drew Beam struggled on the bump but Tennessee overcame an early deficit before a massive fifth inning downed the Vols.
Here’s everything coach Tony Vitello said about the loss.
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On what made AJ Russell effective at Georgia
“He’s good. He’s good. I should have brought him in the game earlier, that’s my mistake. But he’s good and he’s also building a little confidence. You can kind of see a little bit more relaxation and a little bit more swagger or whatever you want to call it as he gets out there more-and-more often. But he’s always been a kid that’s blessed with good composure, at least he pays attention to that category maybe and has good composure as well.”
On what went wrong for Beam and what went into the decision to give him the fifth inning
“Fastball location was probably the thing that was off that I know of just from paying attention from my end. Maybe there was something else and then in the fifth inning, pitch count was down, he put up his first zero and kind of had the look in his eye like he was determined. We get the first hitter out (if not for an error) but it didn’t work out our way there and it kind of steam rolled, spiraled, however you want to phrase it.”
On if there’s anything he notices that’s led to Beam’s number differences at home versus on the road
“I don’t know because it wasn’t the case last year and that’s a bigger sample size at this point— at least by one weekend. Of course he was good in California (Arizona), it’s a neutral site game. To me, he’s given us a chance to win every time out. Just the last two weekends, this weekend and then the previous time we were on the road (Arkansas) he didn’t have his best stuff and had some unfortunate things happen.”
On if Chase Burns was available this weekend
“He was sore so it was kind of day-to-day so there were moments where we were talking about it and moments where we were not so he’ll be fresh and ready to rock-and-roll next weekend.”
On the spark Cal Stark gave them
“He was good. That was the swing that put us right back into the game and you guys brought up the fifth inning and you feel like it’s a tie game, five innings left to play on their field and they get the at-bat in that inning. It was going to be a big one with the top of the order and so it didn’t go our way. Could have made a couple better pitches, could have made a little bit better stuff on defense and then a better job by me.”
On the message to the team postgame
“Just to make sure they handle business. We have to start a new week which means classroom— finals begin this week. Nothing you can do about changing the game so do what we have to do, shower up, get back on the road and we get back to Knoxville and play four games in a row, five if you count the following week but we’re just focused on this week in front of our home crowd which we like. There were some things to take away. There’s always something to take away and maybe one on offense and maybe one just as a team but they had the right attitude, the right approach all three days. We played much better than we did on the road. No one, including me, wants any consolation or any crap like that but it was a better effort on the road.”
On the approach offensively
“Hunter Ensley hits that one and if it gets down, we take the lead. You never know with young kids how confidence can sway back and forth. That’s been a difficulty for us – maybe maintaining that. This weekend, even though there was some quirky things that happened and difficult things and we made some mistakes – the guys maintained that pushing forward approach. That’s what you have to keep in this game because it will not go your way sometimes. No matter who you are. You can be [Mike] Trout or whoever you want – it’s not going to go your way sometimes.”
On Jared Dickey’s three-hit day
“More than anything, a couple of those at-bats today was just determination. Kind of got a chance to tie the game there with a guy at second and two outs and he hits the ball off the pitcher’s shoe. It’s not like he cranked it or anything. He did hit it hard, but he was just trying to shoot it through the middle and tied up the ballgame with a quality at-bat. There at the end, just to get on base. He took one bad swing and then fouled a pitch off. He did whatever he had to do to battle, and it was a good approach with two strikes.”
On Blake Burke’s weekend
“Outside of himself. Frank [Anderson] chimed in and talked to him. Your head is going to move a lot when you’re running to the baseball. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the swing that took place in BP the prior three days because it’s probably one of the best fundamentals that we had going on in BP – with all due respect to everyone else. Whatever reason looked like he was trying to conquer the word today. That’s the opposite of what we were just talking about, not that Dickey did everything right and Burke didn’t. Trying to just get the job done has been a theme that these guys have attached themselves to the past three weeks when we’ve been playing better baseball.”
On Griffin Merritt’s play and Kavares Tears injury
“Griffin gives us maturity and KT was available this weekend. A little hesitant – it’s good that we bought him some more time, kind of like the other guys we mentioned (Burns). Maybe a situation or two we should have used him. Now, at least we know going forward, he’s at full strength despite the fact that we didn’t use him this weekend where we possibly could have.”
