Tony Vitello defends offensive approach by Tennessee players despite struggle

Tennessee entered the SEC Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the conference during the back half of the regular season. However, since the Vols dropped a handful of series early on, they were stuck having to play in the single elimination round, where they faced a surging Texas A&M club.

Welp, Tony Vitello’s team struck out on day one of the tourney, losing 3-0 to the Aggies on a day where they just couldn’t muster much on offense. Although, the head coach wasn’t as upset as you might think. After the game, he expressed some frustration at a particular fan in attendance who vocalized his displeasure over Tennessee’s performance at the plate.

“Certainly guys trying. Some tough guy in the stands didn’t think they were, but I can guarantee you our guys are trying,” declared Vitello. “Otherwise, they’re not on the field this time around or this time of year.”

The Volunteer head coach went on to say he liked the at-bats his team had and the balls just didn’t bounce the right ways that afternoon.

“We certainly had some struggles earlier in the year, but I think we got some things sorted out to where we found out what our best defense was, corrected some base-running mistakes. And then our at-bats on the whole, if you look at baseball, it’s a game of percentages, have been pretty good. You take one day, anything can happen with the weather, with the starting pitcher, wind is blowing one way or the other.

“There’s a lot that can happen. So you’ve got to go out there and play, and I thought our guys did that. Things obviously tensed up a little bit as they took the lead first, and then we had a couple balls that didn’t go maybe where we wanted them to. But I think the story is the guy that I saw walking up probably to talk to Burkey and those other guys. That was not in the scouting report.”

For Tony Vitello, another development that wasn’t in the scouting report was Texas A&M starter Troy Wansing lasting for eight scoreless innings.

“I don’t know that anyone’s Plan A was Wansing going eight innings, except for one guy, Wansing. So kudos to him and anyone else that believes in themselves.”

Vitello was clearly a little irked after a disappointing opener to postseason play from the Vols. Perhaps a stumble like this will get the boys in the dugout laser focused on coming out sharp next weekend.