Tennessee coach Tony Vitello explains why Vanderbilt outfielders struggled vs. Volunteers
Despite the controversial disallowance of a home run in Friday night’s game against the Vanderbilt Commodores, the Tennessee Volunteers escaped with a series-opening 6-2 victory. During the game, outfielders struggled with playing high fly balls, and Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello just explained why.
Vitello said that judging fly balls was tough on Friday night due to the time of day being between day and night time. But Vitello wanted no part of attributing Vanderbilt’s struggles with fielding fly balls to karma after Tennessee’s home run was disallowed early on.
“The sky was kind of in the mid-range, it wasn’t night time but it wasn’t day time,” Vitello said. “When we practiced last night, I’ll give myself some credit, I hit some fungos high enough to go above the lights even though I’m not very strong. If it gets above those things, our guys were having trouble seeing them. I can’t speak for those guys, but I assume those things were lifted high enough in the air that was above the lights. But it was certainly awkward.
“For us, the comment I made to our guys about that is, baseball gods or karma or whatever, I don’t think you can play the game and have that in the back of your mind. I think you just gotta compete.”
Tennessee ultimately defeated Vanderbilt 6-2, and the Volunteers out-hit the Commodores 7-6, as well.
More on Tennessee’s controversial disallowed home run vs. Vanderbilt
In the first inning, Tennessee’s Jordan Beck hit a home run but was ruled out upon reaching home plate due to him not having a legal bat.
Prior to games, bats must be tested and a sticker must be placed on it for it to be deemed legal. When Beck hit his home run, his bat was missing that necessary sticker, thus making it illegal. Beck was then ruled out, and the home run was taken off of the board. The SEC released a statement following the game explaining the ruling.
“In pre-series bat testing, a sticker with the logo of the opposing team is placed on legal bats,” the statement read. “There was a sticker on the bat in question, but it was not an appropriate sticker on the bat. It was a sticker from a midweek game.”
Following that ruling, Vitello got into a very heated exchange with all four umpires on the field.
Tennessee’s victory over Vanderbilt extended the Volunteers’ current winning streak to 17 games. That is a program record, and Tennessee now sits at 25-1 overall, including a perfect 7-0 start against SEC opponents. The Volunteers and Commodores play games two and three of the weekend series on Saturday and Sunday.