Tony Vitello updates status of pitcher AJ Russell ahead of Knoxville Regional

When Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello met with members of the local media Wednesday ahead of the Knoxville Regional, the skipper updated the status of right-handed pitcher AJ Russell and what his status could be moving forward.

“I think that is the one guy that you don’t know exactly if he will be available or what would be available,” the coach said. “We will see. He has been eager to compete, which obviously he has done sparingly. We have tried to meet him in the middle of what is the best thing to do. But he has been sore. To this point, we have probably pressed it as good as we can.

“If it was a normal weekend, he probably wouldn’t pitch. But as we made it to the fifth game of the week and he had some time to bounce back, he wanted the ball and was not going to go more than an inning. I think if he is available and he does throw, same thing. No more than two or three outs. If not, it has been a staff that has had to manufacture outs or operate without him other than him being in the dugout, which would certainly add value as well.”

The sophomore was making his second appearance back from lengthy injury in Sunday’s Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament championship game against LSU – a game Tennessee won 4-3 over the Tigers – when the ESPN broadcast showed athletic trainer Jeff Wood checking on Russell in the Tennessee dugout after the first inning.

“I don’t know what the broadcast showed but Woody and him were going to sync up, regardless, how do you feel and where are you at with everything,” the coach said afterwards in the postgame press conference.

Russell wasn’t scheduled to pitch more than one or maybe two innings in the contest. He surrendered a towering 471 foot home run off the bat of Jared Jones in the first inning as the Tigers took an early 1-0 lead after first corralling a pair of quick outs.

“I think he was wanting to press the issue and throw a certain amount of pitches or probably go until maybe he’s in a jam,” Vitello continued on Sunday. “We kind of knew all long, we wanted him to start the game. Give us a little bit of calmness because we know how he competes and he’ll throw strikes, and he did that. Obviously he gives up the home run but a lot of people have done that to Mr. Jones. It’s kind of the cost of doing business, throwing strikes trite interest.”

Russell faced five batters, hit a batter and struck out two over 22 pitches during a scoreless relief appearance on Wednesday against Vanderbilt in the tournament. It was his first outing in 60 days after coming back from his second lengthy injury of the season.

It was his first action since leaving the top of the ninth inning in a game against Ole Miss on March 23, spanning a total of 60 days. It was the second lengthy absence of the season for the pitcher, as he also missed a total of 30 days earlier in the campaign as well.

Prior to his latest return, Russell had made just four appearances on the injury-plagued season with three starts over a total of 12.1 innings.

The righty pitched extremely well in the season-opener against No. 21 Texas Tech at Globe Life Field and it was also the first weekend start of his career as well. Russell went on to strike out 10 batters over 4.1 innings pitched where he allowed two runs off three hits in Opening Day start. 

Top-seeded UT will welcome 4-seed Northern Kentucky to Lindsey Nelson Stadium on Friday at 7 o’clock eastern time on the SEC Network to begin its play in the Knoxville Regional. 2-seed Southern Miss and 3-seed Indiana get going earlier in the day at 1 o’clock eastern time on ESPN+.

The Game 1 and Game 2 losers will play Saturday at 12 p.m. ET and the winners will match up at 6 p.m. ET. Game 3’s winner and Game 4’s loser play Sunday at 12 p.m. ET and the Game 4 winner plays the Game 5 winner Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Game 7 of the regional will be played on Monday, if necessary. Television designations for Saturday and Sunday are to be determined.