Everything Tony Vitello said following a midweek win over eastern Kentucky

Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello spoke with members of the local media on his team’s win over Eastern Kentucky Tuesday evening. It was the club’s 16th-straight victory and concluded a 15-game homestand from Lindsey nelson Stadium.

The Vols will begin Southeastern Conference play this weekend at Alabama. The following is a written transcript of the Tony Vitello press conference.

What he likes about Christian Moore leading off…

“C-Mo wants to be in there. He wants to win. To the point to where those competitive juices will boil over or overflow. Which, at times you have to tame that down, but when it’s gone, you miss it with a guy like Drew Gilbert.

What he looks for in a leadoff hitter…

“It kind of depends on who you have. We haven’t really said we want to play one style of baseball or another, other than we want our guys to play hard. So a little bit of it is the hand you’re dealt or the people you recruit, and for us, we don’t really have a lineup that speaks to this guy is a good slasher, or this guy just needs to get on base, a lot of variance. We’re blessed to have more than a handful guys who can be middle of the order hitters for really any team since we’ve been here. 

“At times, you kind of wonder if you’re doing the right thing in any spot. And in the leadoff spot for instance, you’ve got C-Mo, he’s one of your best guys at driving in runs. He’s in the top of that spot, which will probably sacrifice a few RBIs, but he’s a confident kid. Anybody can kind of brace that first at-bat sometimes if you just see six pitches, but don’t get a hit, it’s a good at-bat for your teammates. Just not for you. You gotta have thick skin and be confident like he is.

“The other thing is if you do the math and you keep the lineup the same, that’s going to be the guy that has the most at-bats out of anybody else. He’s arguably the most dangerous offensive player we have, at least in certain occasions. There’s a lot of things that go into it, but I also think — it maybe showed up more last year more than anything, this staff, we have healthy debates amongst all the coaches, voicing our opinion and we’re not afraid to try something. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Sometimes it’s risky. We try different things and the times we’ve tried that, it’s seemed to fit.”

On getting LHP Chris Stamos back on the mound after dealing with soreness the last two weeks…

“It was great to get him out there. He was itching to do so. He always wants to be out there. At the same time, when he’s in the dugout, he’s always involved in the game whether it’s actively just kind of watching, so he’s prepared while cheering on his teammates. All the good things you’re hoping for as a coach.

“At the end of the summer, it’s wild how it worked out. It was the last guy. It was Griffin Merritt the year before. This year it was him. He was the last guy added to the roster. I was really really excited at time just because he’s a likable kid, but I’m more and more excited every day. He’s going to help us win some ball games, but he just kind of — that’s the type of guy you want to have on your team regardless of if he pitches with his right arm, left arm, he’s a hitter, just a defender. So it was just good to get him out there. He’s older, not worried about him being in a rhythm or get him in a situation where there’s a guys on base so he’s prepared. He’s older, he’s experienced, he’s been thrown in a bunch of different situations. He just needs to get back into a groove when he’s available all the time and fortunately we’re there.”

On them having success with transfer pitchers…

“Originally we didn’t want to dive into deep waters with that stuff when the rule changed. We had the 2022 team which kind of spoke to development and everyone preaches and says that word in recruiting but we truly are confident in the development piece and part of it is how many people we have involved, the resources we have and it’s really important to us. There’s a lot of people here that didn’t have a lot of ability starting out or had to scratch and claw and fight for everything they got, so starting from if you want to call it the bottom of the depth chart I feel like all of our kids get all of our energy to try and help develop them.

But having said they we also recognized (that) it’s a part of college baseball now and particularly in the SEC because there’s some kids that do well in other places and want to do well in the league that is at least the most talked about. So, for us, we’re not looking for too many so— it’s frustrating. There’s been a couple that I wish we had last year or this year but we just kind of pick a couple that are a good fit and they’ve also got a proven track record so we’re off to a pretty good start there and then you hand them off to Coach A(nderson) and it’s gone well. We need to put it to paper, the kids that have been here shouldn’t transfer unless you know you’re going to play more and you’re going to improve your situation. I like guys staying where they’re at but we should put to paper, the guys who have come here have not only been on the field a bunch but have had success. Not just on the mound but positionally too.”

On what he’s learned about this team prior to SEC play…

“They’re a little tougher. I would say since January. I think at the end of the fall that was a challenge you put out there and sometimes it’s tough to judge that but I think they’re tougher than maybe the coaches gave them credit for earlier on and I think they’ve handled the lineup being posted pretty good. There’s certainly been guys up in the office that wanted to know what they have to do to play more but no one has complained, no one has pouted. That sounds simple but that is massive. For the coaches, that is massive but also for the guys playing. I played once at second base and it ain’t fun to take pregame in-and-out when they guy that’s the other second baseman is pouting and doesn’t like you or he doesn’t like you because you’re playing. I’m just trying to throw out an example of how it can kind of create a toxic situation even if it’s just a small one. So those two things have been impressive and there have been some others like getting Matty D (Matthew Dallas) back out there after a while or Brob’s (Brady Robertson) first career outing was tonight. There have been a lot of firsts happen and a lot of boxes checked but it’s early in the year we just need to keep evolving as a team.”

On the scout of Alabama…

A lot of times you guys ask me on Tuesday nights and Eastern Kentucky got all of our attention and that includes the players. I really liked the way they approached Spring Break, a contested weekend, a heated win on Sunday — a true sweep, which you know the first weekend we played mixed competition and they were all business. You could sense it well before the scoreboard started. That’s kind of where our focus was, but Alabama has a new coach so there will be new energy there and then we know some of the players that are returning. I’m sure they added a few, too. 

We’ve got some people that truly earn their salary in our building that are digging into that, so we’ll connect and join forces. But they’re an SEC team, we have to go on the road, and like I said — I’m familiar with who their new coach is, he’ll do an exactly job over a long haul over there and I don’t see why that wouldn’t have already started now. 

On Matthew Dallas’ strikeout to end the sixth inning… 

It was big, but also just the way he was throwing was really good. We say it to the guys but I don’t think they really listen — including kids that come to camp or kids we recruit. College coaches are not all geniuses but they have their kind of master’s degree in baseball so to speak.  When they’re watching these kids, they’re not always just look for what you’re doing, it’s how you do it. 

Some guys, if you know what a pop time is, a catcher, you can cheat your butt off and get a real quick time throwing the ball down to second but it’s going to turn off a scout or a coach. You want to see a guy who looks like a ball player, does it right, and get a fair look at him. I don’t know if that example applies. 

For our guys, often we’re looking at their presence and how they’re handling situations. Eventually, you got to — you can’t just go 0-for-40 as a hitter and we’ll just keep putting you back out there because you have good presence but the way he was throwing the ball and the presence was huge and the byproduct was able to get a strikeout. You pointed out the fact, it kind of had a clutch feel to it going down 2-0 because you’re trying to squeeze  in a lot of pitchers in a short amount of time. 

On the difference in culture, and building the close culture… 

I think a part of it is, its not like last year’s team was poor at the end of the year, I think they picked up where they left off. We inherited some guys — like Billy is just a natural fit, we’re blessed. We already kind of spoke on Stamos is immediately — he was like Griff (Griffin Merritt) — immediate kind of leader even though he was new and blended in right away. Him and Kirby (Connell) and Zander (Sechrist) I don’t know what they got going on, if they don’t have a podcast they could probably getting away with having one. 

So, I think a lot of it stems too from your core — (Hunter) Ensley and (Blake) Burke and Chuck (Charlie Taylor) those guys have been around the block. And Payne, Ethan Payne that is, and they know what works and what doesn’t work here. And, 2022, is a year too, we won some games and there was also a fight in the dang locker room and it’s not rosy every day. So it’s like getting in the cage, you figure out what swing doesn’t work and you don’t repeat it, you figure out what swing does work and you try and repeat it. I think our guys have collectively made a really big push to do that. 

We’ve tried to get good players here, we don’t need the best players, we just want good kids from good families that will work hard, and that’ll make for kind of what we got going on now. 

On AJ Russell’s availability health wise entering SEC play…

“He’s good. He threw a bullpen and we kind of checked the boxes. I don’t necessarily know how early in the weekend it will be or when it would be – the situation. But, if we felt like hey we needed to go and get someone tonight or we wanted to get him an inning tonight, we could have maybe pressed the issue there. Early in the year still. Early and conservative. I get it. It’s a watermark and we are about to start conference play, but if you take a step back and look at the entire picture of the season, we just need to keep progressing as a team. We are still kind of in that mold where we will be kind of conservative with a guy like [Alex] Perry and [Camden] Bates. It’s frustrating to not play those position players tonight but just a little sore in a couple of areas. So, just being conservative.”

On wanting to win every game but trying to be your best at the end of the season…

“You better come to the park and bring it in our league. I don’t know what the rankings are. I’m sure the top-10 has got to be littered with a few teams in our league. To me, you might as well just throw them all in the same hat. If you host them, you’d like to think you have a little bit of an advantage because you’re at home. But it doesn’t matter which SEC team it is, it’s going to be hell. I said that the other day so I feel like I can say it again today. I didn’t get any mail or an email. And then you go on the road, it doesn’t matter which venue it is, they all have a difficult thing about them and it’s tough. You better bring it first of all. And then it starts, you are kind of trying to get to 15 wins – that’s a great watermark. It sounds like you have low standards, but if you can get to 15 wins, you have put yourself in an awfully good position. There’s some other math. I don’t talk to the players about it. You are trying to get there. Well, how are you going to get there? You’ve got to try and win on a Friday or a Thursday if that’s when the series starts. If you don’t you can’t get too down. Baseball will already beat ya down and then the SEC will beat you down worse. So, if you’re throwing kerosine on that fire by beating yourself down a little bit too or we are doing that as a group in the locker room, it just makes for a big mess. And if you win game one, certainly not time to bust out the champaign or for these 19-year-olds, Welch’s I think makes a nice champaign-looking bottle. It’s not time to do any of that yet. So, on the hunt for the next one and you hope they pile up somewhere near that watermark where 14 should get you in a regional but 15 means you’re not sweating. 13 is possible and 16 is a hell of a lot better. One day at a time is a nice little cliché for a reason, in particular in baseball. That process will start for us on Friday.”