Everything Tony Vitello said following the series-opener in Oxford with Ole Miss
Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello made some remarks following game one’s 3-2 win on the road in Oxford against Ole Miss on Friday night. The following is a written transcript of the Tony Vitello postgame press conference.
On what he saw from Liam Doyle…
“There’s obviously a progression that he’s making and there’s a storyline behind it with him being here. You could see maybe a little bit of extra passion but it was controlled. And so, what I was originally going to talk about was the progression he’s making as a starting pitcher. I think he got a few starts as a freshman, last year started here and he’s still trying to find a way to be the best version of himself because unfortunately as a starter it’s a marathon not a sprint. You’re up and down and he’s not built like that. He’s an extreme competitor so, again, the extra focus or whatever it was helped him control that emotion and passion. Maybe there was extra but to be honest with you, he’s always got that to him. Maybe a little added focus, teammates helped him out behind him, but he was a Friday night SEC guy tonight. Their guy wasn’t at his best but you saw (Mason) Morris come in and he’s a Friday SEC guy too.”
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On what he said to Doyle when he pulled him from the game in the ninth inning…
“I think you want the guy to basically die on the vine out there. He took ownership of the game and you hate to take him out of the game and something goes awry but you got to trust your teammates and they’ve done a good job for him in extended relief earlier in the year, up until now. But he went so deep into the game that it was what our vision was, it would have been nice to get it done one lefty earlier but (for) Snead and Loy to help him out and we’ll take a win anyway we can get it but the fact that he did save our bullpen and those guys had shortened work is nice. But, again, we’ll take it any way we can get it.”
On what he liked about responding from the poor doubleheader against Texas A&M, handling the environment…
“All that is added to it and this has always been a great place. Each place is a little different but now we’ve been on the road three different times. Some parks with a lot of history in it. New history going to Alabama’s park and that was rowdy down there. Tough competition. Extra curricular activity. So they’ve kind of seen it and know who they are so it’s kind of the one thing we can control is how we are as a group on Thursday night in our practice. And there was some stuff that went on with that (Ole Miss didn’t tarp the field leaving puddles on the infield dirt), and then how they come out today. The scoreboard makes it easy to high-five one another but i just like the way they’re making progress, like Liam as far as how they are as a team.”
