Everything Tony Vitello said on a game one victory over Samford

Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello met with members of the media on Friday evening following his team’s 5-1 win over Samford in game one of the series from Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

Below is a written transcript from the Tony Vitello press conference.

On the difficulty of the Liam Doyle & Tanner Franklin stack for opposing hitters…

“It’s really good stuff. I think Frank [Anderson] has done a great job of getting guys to pour it in the zone, but at times too, those guys get ahead in the count and have located some good pitches. To their credit, the last two weekends, it’s been two different teams. So, against both teams, getting ahead and then hitting spots later in the count has tallied some strikeouts for them. But I think you got two guys that really like to compete, and they’ve both improved greatly since being on campus, and they’ve both got stuff that’s probably gonna allow them to pitch as long as they wanna pitch.”

On the Liam Doyle & Cannon Peebles “battery” combination…

“I think anytime Cannon [Peebles] is back there, he adds his own flavor to the game. Him and Cal [Stark] were like that one-two punch for us. And then Stone [Lawless], now, I think based on how he caught last weekend, it’s kind of the same thing. I think both those guys can catch any of the pitchers that we’ve had, and both of them provide a lot of strength back there defensively. But that personality you’re talking about, I think as well. The guys love throwing to Stone because of who he is, and then like you’re alluding to, you know Peebles is gonna compete for you like crazy at the plate and behind the dish when he’s catching. Blessed in that category, too.”

On what he likes about the discipline from the hitters so far…

“Yeah, and the complementary fact that they make guys pay when they’re in the zone. If you don’t, then there’s more incentive for guys to throw strikes. But I think some pitchers know that our lineup with Coach E’s (Josh Elander) tutelage has basically had a good reputation of being able to drive the ball outta the park or hit for extra base hits or do damage on pitches that are in the zone. So, I can’t speak for the other team, but maybe that gets guys nitpicking a little bit. But whatever our opponents have been doing, our hitters have not really given them a lot of breathing room as it relates to missing spots or nitpicking around the zone.”

On the importance of Cannon Peebles’ start to the season at the plate…

“I think it’s helpful but not a necessary ingredient, if that’s fair to say. Because I think he’s kind of in a different place, and I think he’s set up in a real positive way even though some of the things that went on in the past weren’t positive. We’re talking about a guy that, you know, we don’t get to the second game in Omaha in the winner’s bracket, we don’t win the whole thing without his at-bats for us. But what you’re alluding to is he came in with a bunch of hype and great expectations and he tried to conquer the world and he realized you really can’t do that. All you can do is get out there and play your best. And at times he did not do that. And I think we’re in a position this year where regardless of what you guys see on these stat sheets, we’re going to get his best mindset and his best effort every day. And then being in this cage area, you know he’s prepared as well as any player we’re going to have too. So I think he’s in a good spot because of all the good things and all the negative things that have happened so far in his college career and we’re getting the best version of him defensively and offensively.”

On combining plate discipline with power hitting

“I think it’s sustainable, but one thing you’re going to get is a lot of pitching staffs that are coached very well, but have some of the best pitchers in the country too. So if the numbers tail off, that’s one thing. But I think the approach is what we want to keep consistent. So I think it is sustainable to have that approach, but to keep the numbers as league play enters and other guys we see on the mound come about. I think that’ll be interesting to see. 

But yeah, I think the power is you’d rather have a three run homer than a solo homer. So you’d like to think that two can complement each other. It’s just today it didn’t really happen for us. I’m not complaining in five runs on a day where obviously it was chilly and we saw some guys with some quirky looks too on the mound. I think Peebles might might even mentioned that to you guys. So we didn’t really have it click to where we put up a big number of runs, but just having that capability of getting guys free bases and then a guy that can slug it out of the park or hit you a double or whatever might be, I think is going to be fun for us.”

On quality at-bats despite leaving men on base…

“I think some of them were guys battled, but man, the two lefties they threw at us, really had different looks and some of their pitches didn’t do the same thing twice. I could hear our guys talking to one another and we’ve got scouting report information, but it’s so early in the year, you got to kind of take it with a grain of salt. So, no real complaint for guys taking too big of a swing or not competing or anything crazy. It just didn’t click for us in particular. If anything, I think they get some credit for how some of their pitchers handled pressure, if you want to call it pressure situations or situations where there was a bunch of guys on base.’

On playing a full nine inning baseball game…

“Weird, but it’s nice when the weather gets better as the day goes on. Normally it’s kind of going in the descending direction, but I’m just glad we got the play today. I’m glad we got to play nine innings. In this case we used only two pitchers, but if you backtrack, what we lost last weekend was six, probably, guys making their first appearance for the Vols and some guys are probably still waiting because of that. But it’s what we got going on, so glad we got more repetitions and looking forward to tomorrow.”

On what winning his 300^th game means…

“You want the real answer or smart aleck answer? They’re both kind of the same. I don’t know, I don’t know when that’s coming either [it happened Friday]. John Wilkerson ruins my life. He’s such a great asset for the program, but he ruins my life probably about every other week [as] he throws a stat at me that I don’t want to hear. Like what our ranking is or any of that stuff. So, we’ll just leave all that up to the loving relationship with a minor bit of hate I have with John.”

On if he thinks it is rat poison…

“I believe in Nick Saban, whatever he had going on down there, some of that. Yeah, whatever he had going on down there. Worked all the ingredients involved. Worked for Alabama football. And you know for us, we got our own thing going on here. We don’t have that phrase in our repertoire, but I’ve heard guys talk similarly to each other in here out on the field and I think the biggest thing is our guys need to learn how valuable last year was at learning to write your own narrative. I used the word leadership when I talked to you guys a bunch in the fall because we didn’t have to do anything. The Evansville game – game three – was the one I use. If I go speak to a group, I’ve said it a million times getting out of the car. How do we spend this? How do we attack this day? And then it was like, oh, I don’t have to do anything. Just because of the way the guys were talking and the way they were acting and the focus they had. So, this group is still finding their way on who can lead, who are leaders and how do you need to follow the leaders. But I think they need to realize how valuable it was last year to write your own narrative and use your own catchphrases -whatever it might be.”

On what he wants to see from Marcus Phillips tomorrow…

“Just to continue to progress because it’s been so fun for him to kind of go from is he going pitch for us at all to, is he going to pitch for us in a situation where the game’s contested and then what inning is it going to be? He started and relieved a little bit last year and now we know what his role is for the time being. I just want to see him progress a little bit because I guess his storyline I was trying to paint was from a long time ago. He started it here and he’s worked all the way to here (moving his hands from left to right), so might as well keep plugging along.”