Tony Vitello seeks rhythm on the mound this week in Hoover

Hoover, Ala. — Tennessee finished the regular season as co-champions of the Southeastern Conference and enter the league’s tournament week with the No. 1 seed.

The Vols are the top-ranked program in the country and have been slated as the No. 1 overall seed by Baseball America’s latest Field of 64 Projections this week. Tony Vitello’s program will host a regional in Knoxville next weekend and another for Supers if they advance.

The point is, this week means very little in the grand scheme of things for this specific Tennessee ballclub. Winning is always fun and that’s exactly what the team will be trying to do, but what big-picture goals will skipper Tony Vitello hope to accomplish this week at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex?    

“To have the pitching sorted,” the coach said when asked what he wants accomplished during the tournament. “You want to use a certain amount of guys, get them action. It’s been a little bit— heck even DLoy [Dylan Loy] started a game for us but some time will pass and you want to keep guys in somewhat of a rhythm. It’s also an imperfect time of year, so they need to be willing to go at any time and take on whatever role – which literally something comes up where it’s the first time they’ve done it all year, but they take the ball and you run with it because it’s the same deal.”

Tennessee could start long-reliever Nate Snead on Wednesday when the Vols open play against (9) Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament at approximately 5:30 pm eastern time. The hard-throwing righty was magnificent against the Commodores two weeks ago, tossing five scoreless innings of relief where he allowed only five hits with four strikeouts.

Snead came entered game two of the series with one out in the ninth inning and the tying run on second base. He escaped the trouble and picked up his fourth save of the season, needing only three pitches.

“We’re in a race to get 27 outs and however we can get them, we’ll take it,” Vitello continued. “We would like to use those guys, as many of them as possible, and not wear anyone out to the point where they’re breaking their record for personal amount of pitches thrown.”

Wednesday’s contest will be a ‘bullen’ game as freshman Dylan Loy or junior college transfer Marcus Phillips could also be starting options for the Big Orange. The expectation is to get back into the ‘normal’ rotation for the rest of the week. Opening Day starter AJ Russell is also expected to make his return to the mound this week and sources have told Volquest that is likely to be Wednesday out of the bullpen.

“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,” the coach said on pitch counts this week. “And I think we’re in a good spot. Don’t want to go crazy but I think we’re in a good spot.”    

Depending on how many games the Vols play this week, pitching coach Frank Anderson could be emptying the bench for fresh arms. If the Vols are sent home prior to the weekend, then pitchers will throw bullpens to catch up on where they should be in a normal week.

At the end of the day, however, it’s baseball and things can get wacky over the course of nine innings.

“We’ll script it ahead of time, and then just kind of feel it out as the game is going on. Unfortunately Plan A, as much time as you put into it, rarely occurs,” Vitello concluded. “It can, if all things go right, but I would expect more chaos and we’ll probably end up approaching that game (by) piecing it together. And the good thing is, like I said, we feel comfortable about the guys we have.”

Tennessee concluded the 2024 regular season with a 46-10 overall record and 22-8 tally in conference play. The Vols won their last nine conference series in-a-row and have only lost games in back-to-back fashion one time this season, back on March 16-17 at Alabama.

The Vols were one-and-done in Hoover last year, but won the tournament title in 2022.