Everything Tony Vitello said on wild 10-7 win over Arkansas on Thursday night

Tennessee scored 10 runs in the series-opener at Arkansas on Thursday night and it needed just about every one of them in the 10-7 final score over the Hogs. Following the victory, skipper Tony Vitello answered a couple of questions on the win for the Vols. Below is video and a written transcript from Tony Vitello.

On the pitching performances tonight, specifically Marcus Phillips and AJ Russell…

“The pitching group as a whole is a team effort, because D-Loy [Dylan Loy] and T-Frank [Tanner Franklin] were the least amount as far as pitch count, but those were two massive outs. Then Nate Snead grinded out what are the most difficult outs at the end of the game, but the table was set. Marcus [Phillips] was asked to throw on short – kind of short notice there because of some stuff with Liam [Doyle], [to] get him rested up. And of course, AJ [Russell] behind him has still been trying to find his way where he’s in a rhythm, because he’s been coming off injuries. So, both guys battled adversity before we even got here, and then in the stadium with the crowd, of course, the great lineup. One of the, I don’t know, statistically, but probably you can argue one of the better, if not best, lineup in the country. So, big time performance by all those guys.”

On how impressive the lineup was tonight, top-to-bottom…

“It was great. We wanted to go with Grim [Blake Grimmer] for a lot of different reasons. You always get a calm presence with him. But Levi [Clark] stepped in and was massive. But the guy underneath them, that’s quite frankly out there, because he does a really good job with the glove with Manny [Marin], was also tremendous. And then each time the lineup turned over, it was a true team effort. And I’m going off my own personal tangent, or the coach’s tangent, but it really represented what we wanted tonight was to kind of dedicate tonight’s game, and hopefully a great effort and a win to Tony Dallas, who suffered from ALS and passed away. Chad Dallas was his son. Typically pitched for us on Friday nights or Thursday game one. And I don’t know that we’ve had a better teammate than that kid since we’ve been here.”

On the key to building off tonight’s win and putting together another good performance tomorrow….

“Tomorrow, I think it’s a night game. It’s Senior Night for them. Will be high emotion, something we’ve experienced, not just at our park but on the road as well. If we do have success on Friday or game one, we have had some success. You are going to get the other team’s best punch. So, I think the biggest thing is to have a sense of calm. You want some energy over here, but a sense of calm and composure over here and make sure we’re just playing the game. Some things got hokey there in one inning. We rush a play and some other stuff. So, I think the biggest thing for us is just to play ball tomorrow.”

On Marcus Phillips not allowing any stolen bases…

“I think he really varied the way he was holding runners on, not just with his pick off moves. And Coach Elander was kind of teasing and keeping it light hearted over here in the dugout, he’s yelling out, that’s a new move, that’s a new new look, but also his timing to the plate. And then a big part of that too was us having a lead. It’s a little more difficult to run aggressively. And, to no fault of Marcus’s, the last few times he’s been out there, we’ve been behind in the game, which allows the offense to be a little more aggressive.”

On the first inning double play settling Marcus Phillips down…

“Yeah, that was huge. You’re facing a big, strong hitter (who) has a ton of RBIs. And in that situation, he makes a great pitch, gets a double play ball, and it doesn’t always work out that way, either. The one thing about Marcus, regardless of what you’re talking about or what goes on in the game— by now, he’s seen about every situation this year. He’s had a battle through a lot of innings where there’s different things going on. So it’s nice to see when he has a little bit of presence or composure and just trust that good stuff that he has.”

On the odd eighth inning play where Ariel Antigua committed a throwing error…

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a line drive and he rushed it so much, you know, he kind of caught it and then wanted to race to the bag to get the double play. And then the ball drops, and you could get a double play in an unconventional way. So the proper thing there, call wise, is just to call it a line drive and kill it, but they were able to advance because we had a mad scramble after that. So again, I think that epitomizes just playing ball. I mean, we just put Ariel in for defense, because he’s arguably one of the best shortstops in the entire country defensively. But any player out here, when you go outside of yourself or you try and go too fast, it usually doesn’t work out the way you want.”

On his thoughts on Arkansas’ offense after seeing it in person…

“It’s loaded. It’s loaded. And you got two brothers that are both, I don’t know which one’s bigger, but they’re both very physical. But they’re not the only guys that are physical. And even some of the guys that maybe are a little shorter in stature than the two brothers, their guys are strong. And you know one thing about Coach Van Horn’s teams, they’ve always played offensively very well rounded ball. You saw some bunts in there, Some running, a hit-and-run well executed. So we’ll have our hands full tomorrow with similar lineup that’s got a diversified way of going about.”