Tony Vitello jokes about flexibility his ‘goofy’ pitching staff provides in the field

Thanks to Shohei Ohtani, a lot of young pitchers want to become two-way players. As Tennessee Volunteers head coach Tony Vitello joked, that includes the pitchers at Tennessee, who apparently “fancy themselves athletes.”

Despite being a little tongue-in-cheek, Vitello trusts his pitchers to go out and successfully field the ball. He even put one of his pitchers, Seth Halvorsen, into centerfield during the team’s midweek win against Austin Peay.

“Well, these pitchers are about as goofy as it gets but they do run around out there in the outfield, kind of like Sean Hunley who just got recognized for how well he’s doing,” Tony Vitello said. “I mean, he got good enough he could play infield for us. We joke about it but, and I hope he doesn’t hear this, but same thing. Fitz [Jake Fitzgibbons], it could have reversed. Fitz could go in the outfield and some of those other guys out there kind of fancy themselves athletes.”

One important reality that Tony Vitello pointed out is that having pitchers who can field also gives Tennessee some strategic flexibility.

“But they kind of work at it and do it enough that you trust them. Obviously, we had run the gamut with our pitchers and we’re just trying to create a safety valve there. Griffin [Merritt] had made the last out so he wouldn’t have come up for a while. You’d like to think we’d walk him off if we were gonna have to hit again,” Vitello explained.

“So, we just kind of did it that way. But he’s been throwing the ball well. He’s been determined to do better than he had and it certainly has been that way.”

Tennessee has seven regular season games remaining. That includes two three-game series against Kentucky and South Carolina. The Volunteers will also play another midweek game against Belmont.

Tony Vitello on AJ Russell’s potential

Recently, freshman pitcher AJ Russell has shown his potential for the Volunteers. It’s something that’s caught the attention of Tony Vitello.

“You got to have the right heart rate. I think I’ve said with you all before, we got a Braves hat on, [Kumar] Rocker was fun to watch do all kinds of crazy stuff. No politics, I’m not on board with anything he’s had to say, and I’m not against it either, but Rocker was a maniac. The better example, more fun one, is Charlie Sheen in Major League, to have the crazy closer. But the guy you want out there is the guy that is under control. Mariano Rivera, the same guy no matter what the situation is,” Vitello said of Russell.

“And for a freshman, him and Dylan Dreiling are two in particular, and there’s a few others in that class, too. [Andrew] Behnke was like that when we threw him out there for his first time right in the middle of the year where it just looks like they’re playing baseball. And we can ask them to do that as coaches, but it’s a lot easier said than done. So, he’s got good presence to him.”