Tennessee baseball lost to Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament on Wednesday. Here's everything Tony Vitello said about the Vols' loss.
Ben McKee
HOOVER, Ala. — No. 1-seed Tennessee lost to Vanderbilt 13-4 in its opening game of the 2024 SEC Tournament on Wednesday evening. The loss sends the Vols to the loser's bracket.
The Volunteer pitching staff allowed 13 runs on 15 hits in the defeat. Eight Vols made an appearance on the mound at the Hoover Met. Six of them — Nate Snead, Andrew Behnke, Dylan Loy, Marcus Phillips, Matthew Dallas and JJ Garcia— allowed a run in their appearance despite only allowing two walks in the game as a group. Kirby Connell and AJ Russell were the only two who did not.
Vanderbilt catcher Alan Espinal was a thorn in the side of Tennessee's pitchers. He hit a three-run home run in the top of the third and a two-run homer in the seventh to account for five of Vanderbilt's nine runs.
Commodores shortstop Jonathan Vastine launched a three-run home run in the top of the eighth to put the finishing touches on their win. The Vols have now won just two (2004 and 2022) of their 13 opening games at the SEC Tournament when the game is played in Hoover.
Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello met with the media following the loss to discuss what went wrong for his team. Here's everything Vitello had to say.
Opening Statement:
"Pretty basic. They played better than we did. Coached better. Then a big mark in there is we didn't do a good job against Espinal, but I would flip it and say the last three times we've played them, he's been outstanding and he's arguably been their best hitter. It's nothing out of the norm for him, but he did have a big day. The result was awful, especially for fans. I think the city of Hoover likes when we're here because a lot of our fans will attend. So, again, a bad result, but as I look at the box score, it was good to get a lot of guys get their cleats in the dirt in a situation that might be new to them or certainly is new to our group this year."
Q. What did you see from AJ in kind of the beginning to the end of his inning?
VITELLO: It was good. We didn't have many zeros in the game. We can talk about Snead, but he came out throwing the ball really well in the first two innings, and then Russell not only got a zero but we're an eyelash away from turning a double play where he doesn't even have to face another hitter. It was kind of what I expected, and you guys have been asking a lot, so tried to be as honest as possible, and there's nothing to hide there. You've got a kid that is being patiently aggressive towards getting to 100 percent, and he's not there yet.
But again, if you're going to take away a positive from the game, talk about guys getting their cleats in the dirt, it was him getting out there. And, again, a zero is nice, but he wants to face the best hitters regardless of how it's going. So I'm not too worried about that. It was just him feeling comfortable, and obviously unless he's lying to us, which he won't do that very often.
Q. You mentioned wanting to get the pitching sorted earlier this week. Does that feel like a discouraging result, the way some of those guys threw, or kind of a one-off situation?
VITELLO: I think it's just more information. We just talked, you could argue I could have done a better job of either sticking to the script or communicating better with Nate, but we honestly were waiting to see who we would play to determine what we wanted to do. We knew who we were going to throw, which was pretty much everybody that's on the list, one way or another, so we gave Snead a chance, really in the off case that he would have to throw or start later on this year for some reason or another, that he wouldn't have to say it's his first time. So at least we checked that box. I'll have to watch the video, but maybe I could have communicated a little better. Hey, I had scripted two innings, stick to that, trust first instinct may be better, but he was guns blazing there until he hit a roadblock. That was going to be his last inning regardless, and maybe he altered the way he was pitching a little bit to be more of a, quote/unquote, starter. How he's thrown for us all year long has been outstanding. Willing to bet the next go-around will be right back in the role he's earned for us, which he's done an outstanding job of handling.
Q. Similar thought there, but with the look at the pitching depth you got tonight, what was the good you took from it and what was the concerning stuff that you took away from it?
VITELLO: Again, guys getting out there was huge. I think Behnke gets us out of a jam. I think he's capable of doing that. Kirby has kind of been that guy for us. There's some obvious positives in AJ. Again, the fact that at least Nate has done that, and he got his work in, too, it was a light weekend for him. I don't know where he's at appearance-wise or innings-wise, but he's carried a lot of the weight. At the very least his win-loss record, he's got 10 decisions one way or the other and some saves. So last weekend was light. He got his work in regardless of how the rest of this tournament goes. Then the rest of those guys just gave us information. I trust D. Loy when we use him in the situation that's best for him, but I'm willing to bet those first-year guys had a little
Q. How important was it for Reese (Chapman) to see three productive at-bats in terms of how he struck the ball against the SEC competition?
VITELLO: You know, I think beneficial. We communicated to those guys what our expectations are, and I think they get it now. (Dalton) Bargo's at-bat, probably wish he could have a little bit better outcome, but at least he got up there. The other thing is Robin looked much more like Robin (Villeneuve) tonight, and if he doesn't leave that ball with his front side early a little bit, it could have been a much better result. Still squared it up. Bradke (Lohry) is who he is. Would love to say he had 200 at-bats under his belt, but he doesn't, but I think he's still ready to rock and roll for us. Then of course Peebles gets up there too and gets some action behind the plate. So those guys are all going to share those duties as it relates to pinch-hitting and also DHing. And it's nice Reese had a good night. But they're not going to do one thing or another to sway us too far with what we think they can do for us.
Q. How did you feel about your at-bats 1 through 9 before you made all the changes? And what is it about Vanderbilt pitching that you think has given you guys so much trouble, especially with Game 3 of that series and now tonight?
VITELLO: Well, Thompson was outstanding in Game 3 for us, and we just did not kind of have the same flavor to us. And trust me, I think it wasn't because we had won the first two. I think it was maybe because we won the first two, we were trying so hard to finish off the weekend and got frustrated a little too much. But, again, we were frustrated because he was throwing the ball well, and then following him was Futrell. I'd be curious where that outing ranks up for his. Those two guys did a great job. I think this is a completely different deal. Futrell was still sharp, but our guys had good at-bats against him, but when you give up a 5 spot, it's a punch in the gut. You've got to rally together. I think our guys did that okay. We did have some hard contacts that were right at guys, but that's part of the deal.I just think as you go through the lineup, some guys were in there fighting, saw the ball well but didn't have much to show for it. And as you look at the box score, there's blank spots that pop up a little too often. A lot easier to hit when you're winning the game.
Q. What was AJ's pitch count tonight, and if y'all were to make a run to the weekend, would you like to use him again here this week?
VITELLO: Yeah, best-case scenario, if we stick around long enough, he would be able to do that. If not, then he'll just jump into a situation where he can face hitters again. We've kind of beat up the whole bullpen situation, so having guys standing in there I think is beneficial for him. Pitch count-wise was more like 25 to 35. The fact he kind of got in a jam -- maybe if that double play is turned over, we send him back out for a hitter or two, but with the inning kind of going the way it did, it was kind of a group decision led by Frank, let's just move on to the next guy. It was good for him to get out there.
