Everything Tony Vitello said following a series-sweep of St. Bonaventure

Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello spoke to members of the media on Sunday afternoon following a series-sweep of St. Bonaventure. The following is a written transcript from the Tony Vitello postgame press conference.

Up Next: Tennessee welcomes West Georgia for Tuesday midweek action in what will be the final tune-up prior to SEC play. First pitch is slated for 4:30 PM ET.   

On what he learned from a Johnny Wholestaff approach in the win…

“I think the one thing we took [away], which I’m always a fan of, is just reps. Whether it’s plate appearances as a hitter or touches on the mound, whatever the best phrase is for a pitcher to make an appearance, I think it’s a positive no matter what happens. But, within the outing or within an at-bat, you’re always moving up or down. If you really like competition, then I don’t think it makes sense to be a fan of staying in one spot. You’re kind of either gaining ground or not. That doesn’t mean as a hitter you have to have the pressure on you to get a hit. 

“There’s presence, there’s approach, there’s certain things you see, and sometimes maybe you need more than one rep, but some guys helped themselves and some guys didn’t. One of the questions you all had before the weekend or during the weekend was, ‘What do we wanna see going into SEC play?’ I think a vague but true answer is, ‘We want to see what we got,’ and as each day goes forward with this team, we learn more and more. I think there’s a lot of good things, and then there’s always gonna be some things you need to improve on, too.”

On pitchers working around trouble a handful of times…

“Yeah, my mind’s set on Brayden Krenzel getting a chance to grow up. It was weird – the team will know this, they don’t need to hear this – we had a scrimmage where he got thrown into this weird situation, and he did well, and it helped him grow up. We talked about it as a team at the conclusion of the day. And then today, I mean we had [Bryson] Thacker down there in the bullpen, and he was ready. I just didn’t want to have his first career college hitter he faces [be] with the bases loaded. So, Krenzel got ready fast, went out there and did what he did. He continues to be that guy each time he does get out there, to help himself. 

“But yeah, I mean you don’t want guys on base at all, but it does help to get reps where there’s a little bit of pressure on or you have to hold runners on.”

On if he’s comfortable not having a consistent day three starter…

“I think it’d probably be lying or trying to twist words to say you wouldn’t want to know each weekend exactly what it looks like. But at the same time, we proved last year in my opinion, that you can kind of treat it like a puzzle. Not just the coaches but the players. And if everybody’s prepared at all times – willingness is a huge word for the pitchers. [Nate] Snead is one of our better guys, I don’t know that I’ve been around a more willing guy to do whatever whenever, and he always wants the ball. There’s other guys like that, too. So if you have the right pieces, while it may not be mapped out as well as some other teams, you can maybe feel like you’re in a little better spot than other teams, or a little wealthier or having an abundance of options.”

On how good it was for Dalton Bargo to have a big, complete weekend…

“I think you hit the nail on the head, to complete it. I expected y’all to ask about Hunter [Ensley], but with Jay [Abernathy] needing to get in there, you want [Dalton] Bargo to put together a complete weekend repetition-wise. And I think he certainly did that, not just offensively with results, but just with approach and all the things we talked about last night. So, I think it’s something that can help catapult him forward.

“And other guys, you guys have asked about Reese [Chapman], these kids, they need a little bit of affirmation from the game to feel the way that they should. And you could say, ‘Well what about last year?’ Each year is new, and it comes with different expectations, and you guys tweeting out new stuff, and [the] fans and different categories and things like that. So I think he’s one of a few guys that now have been pushed forward because of efforts like this weekend.”

On the statuses of Andrew Behnke and Hunter Ensley…

“He’s [Behnke] thrown off the mound. The old song and dance you guys don’t like to hear. I guess if the world was coming to an end and he needed to go get a hitter, he certainly can do that. But we’d like to go through a sequence and it’s kind like last year with a couple of our guys. The better the team plays…There’s so many different ways where the better the team does, the more it helps the kid. They sometimes just don’t know it. But in that case, it buys you a little room. There’s no need to press fast forward on the deal if other guys are doing a good job covering innings and we’re swinging the bat well. So, he’s ready.

And then [Hunter] Ensley was just to grab him before the game and make sure he doesn’t punch me in the face. Just trying to get different guys in. We can talk about that [run] rule if you want, Because I do, but if you only come to the plate six times in a game – that’s not good for guys like Chris Newstrom, who showed you what he’s fully capable of doing. Imagine if he had a hundred at-bats under his belt rather than the 12 or 13 – whatever.”

On Jay Abernathy’s day…

“It’s just a different vibe, you know, when he is involved. It could be coming off the bench, too, and now everybody knows it could be coming off the bench defensively. It could be coming off as a base runner. And then at the plate, he’s the guy – I’ve been in that situation, the other dugout. It’s annoying to have a guy like that at the plate. And when he gets a little better at the bunt game too, it’s going to be that even more so. We have more than nine guys that have shown they deserve to be in the lineup every day at this point. So, he’ll get his reps at doing that but it sure is fun to have him off the bench too and knowing that he can help you in those different ways.”

On the energy that Alberto Osuna, Manny Marin and Ariel Antigua bring to the dugout…

“Unfortunately, Mr. Antigua was left on deck again today watching the ball go over the left field fence, so that kind of plays into that [rule] deal as well. But he is a guy whose passion for the game is unmatched. And a lot of that I think can be labeled a cultural thing, but I think it’s also just a guy that comes from a great family. And that’s a segue into [Al]Berto. We kept hearing all this to the point where you’re like, ‘come on you like him because he hits home runs’ or ‘you’re just trying to be nice to the kid.’ And again, probably stemming from his family background, just an unbelievable kid. And he started to help me with my Spanish because my guy Manny [Marin], right now he’s doing it with the glove in the back, but he’s not doing it with the bilingual status. So, I go to Berto for that and he’s helping me with some of the things that I’m looking to improve on. But all in all, that’s a pretty good group. The more the merrier.”

On how nice it is to having a catching duo of Cannon Peebles and Stone Lawless after there have been years in the past where they have struggled to find catching depth…

“Yeah, it’s unique, and it’s so nice that, you know, Cannon switch hits, but you know, sometimes in your mind, you get a little too matchup crazy. But it is a factor to have two guys that really are kind of different, and they go about it differently. And if you were asking Coach (Frank) Anderson, a big, big thing to do with that duo is the pitchers really like throwing to the guy. So if you have a guy back there that’s not as talented as those two, it can still go well, because the guys’s kind of play, or his ability elevates a little bit, when the pitchers really respect him and like him and want to throw to him. And both those guys fit that category. 

“And so I already kind of said, you know, Stone has impressed me. He’s done better than I thought he would. Someone needs to — well, I’m sure it’s kind of more the scouts job — Peebles has really become a great catcher. I mean, we’ve kind of gone with an assortment of infielders, but the other night we had Peebles there, and then Manny (Marin), Ariel (Antigua), Dean (Curley) and Gavin (Kilen) all kind of hanging out there. That’s pretty dang good. There’s no weak spot there. So that made me feel confident, and a lot of it is because of how far Peebs has come.”

On Lawless catching the Sunday game instead of the Saturday game…

“That’s a good question. Maybe he made me mad on Saturday, which I don’t even know that he’s capable of, but I think it was more of a deal with their starting pitcher on, I’ve mentioned yesterday, they took him out early, and I wasn’t sure why. I think the guy was just a little sore. So always good to be a little extra cautious with (Michael) Selena, with him coming out of the game earlier. But with Selena’s breaking ball, you saw when it was on, it was really, really good, even though it was only for a few innings. So kind of more that matchup with Peebles. We’ll try and balance that out as best we can. You saw it on opening day, you give a little bit of the nod to the more experienced guy in Cannon, but it helps those guys so much to balance that out.

“Peebles was here really early in the morning, and then he’s also stalking the hallways getting ready for the game, as he always does. I posted the lineup late today, and he doesn’t play, but I do think that benefits him in the long run at that position. What Joe Mauer did offensively, I mean, pro ball is different because there’s more reps, but what Joe Mauer did offensively is insane, at that position, especially, if you break down the analytics. So those two guys have made each other better through competition, through kind of coaching each other, and also the fact that we’ll be able to balance out the reps a little bit.”

On where AJ Russell is in his injury progression…

“Now you mean AJ Russell, right? AJ Russell on the mound. Yeah, just where you threw me off there. I’m not correcting you. Damn it. We were going good again. A choppy weekend, one less hour for (sleep), I didn’t even know that was going on. Maybe I should have mentioned it to the team. You could feel it in the air that there was one less hour of sleep I think at times, but I don’t know why we do that to ourselves. Again, another topic but no, the bottom line is to speak openly about it.

It was a deal where AJ’s an abnormal kid and he got ahead of that program quicker than the average guy. So I mentioned the word analytics, that’s what’s used to decide if (Bryson) Thacker’s ready to go, which he was today, Thacker’s a little bit ahead of the curb but kind of meets where he particularly needs to be and AJ just leapfrogged too many things. And so I think it’s time for everybody that’s involved to take a deep breath, have a conversation and say, he showed what he can do. We feel good about the throwing program and the protocol, but let’s take a deep breath and look out for the long run of what we’re trying to do with our season and his career combined. So that’s a long answer, but I’ll be danged if he didn’t speed through that thing too quick because of how dedicated he was. So again, if you’re talking about hey we need two outs in order to whatever, throw a big party or everybody here gets a high five or a gold sticker, he can go do that right now. I mean he showed it to you the other day.

But again, I think it’s kind of take a deep breath recalibrate mode and kind of start a new throwing program to prepare more to be a starter as opposed to, he came in the other day and just got three outs.”

On what it means for this team to have the best start (16-0) in program history…

“There’s your gold star right there. High five. No, I wasn’t aware of that, but I do think— you may not win every game but you can get a vibe there of what’s going on and it’s one of the better vibes I’ve been a part of, not just here but other programs as well. So they need to make sure that continues to push forward and be ready for more adversity. It doesn’t mean you got to lose the game, but be ready for more adversity. And I’ll tell you what, in 2020 it got cut short, but that team exploded onto the scene and it was a little louder than this team, but then we had a setback against Wright State, a great program, but I think that that group learned in a hurry, ‘hey, you’re not invincible.’ This game will humble you in a hurry. Every sport will. But I think this one just as much, they say golf too, I ain’t messing with that, but I think our guys need to be prepared for adversity to come their way and fall back on the confidence of what they’ve accomplished so far that they can get through it.”

On if there’s a timeline that they think AJ Russell will be back…

“I would think more getting into April as we get into those last two months of the season. And obviously you want to pay play past the month of May, but May’s the big one that college coaches I think talk about and the kids look forward to when school’s out and as we march towards May, March is an important month too, but I think looking at those months of April and May, I think that makes more sense with kind of the pow wow that was had again, just with all parties involved.

So if the button needed to be pressed, it could be pressed, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think he’s definitely wanting to pitch but also has the mind. He’s been there, he’s seen what last year looks like with what needs to be done for a team to have success in the long run. And then we certainly all know, I joked with you the other day, he (can) pitch for 12, 15 years, so not necessarily tying everything down to one week in front of us.”

On so there’s no setbacks for Russell…

“Zero. Not even close, the opposite. No setbacks, got going too fast and so hold your horses. So maybe that thoroughbred that you let, and I’m not gonna go rodeo. I’d love to be a rodeo guy. I had that damn cowboy hat on for a night. I don’t know that I’ve earned the right to do that.”