Tony Vitello does not have a 'magic number' on pitch count for Tennessee pitchers

College baseball regular season might be over, but there’s still a ton of baseball left for skipper Tony Vitello and the Tennessee Volunteers. Up next for Tennessee is the SEC championship tournament.

Before the Volunteers lace them up and take the field in Hoover, AL, their head coach discussed a few details about their pitching rotation and whether or not his pitchers will be on a pitch count for the tournament.

“Oh yeah, a little bit. If you look at our innings pitch, they’re spread out; we always try to do that,” said Vitello. “The 10-run rule kind of messes with it a little bit, but they’re spread out pretty good. So even though certain guys have made a bunch of appearances for us, no one is really kind of maxed out innings.

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“I think Drew (Beam) is in a position where he’ll come close to what he did last year; I don’t even know what his number was. He’s kind of had held a steady pace. But there’s been a lot of games, too, where he’s frustrated; he’s only at 100, but he feels good to keep on going.

Beam has seen his fair share of action for Tennessee this season. The right-handed junior pitcher has 80.1 innings of action to his name in 14 games. He also sports a record of 8-2 with an ERA of 3.59. So it is more than understandable if the Volunteers’ skipper was keeping a close eye on the usage rate of his star right-handed pitcher. But what about the rest of the Tennessee bullpen? Is there a set number of throws for any given player?

“I don’t know what that magic number is for each guy, but I do think we have a sense of how much they’ve been asked of this year and what they’re capable of doing,” he said. “And I think we’re in a good spot. So I don’t wanna go crazy. Again, I think we’re in a good spot.”

Vitello and Tennessee have been careful not to overexert their pitcher’s arms this season, and for good reason. Tennessee has been one of the top teams in college baseball, meaning that they are all but assured of keeping their 2024 campaign going into at least the regional round of the college baseball playoffs. With that much baseball still left to play, the Volunteers are making sure that their aces will be ready and not worn down for postseason play.