BATON ROUGE, La. — Tennessee baseball blew a three-run ninth inning lead at LSU to drop Friday night’s series opener 6-3 at Alex Box Stadium.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello talked the critical ninth inning errors, sticking with Nate Snead on the mound and more. Here’s everything Vitello said.
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On what went wrong in the ninth inning
“We gave a couple free bases. There was one play down the line the start of the inning that was a chopper. I don’t know if we would have been able to make a play regardless. I don’t know what they ruled it. Guy just finds a way to get on base, we give them a couple more free bases and then you’re one strike away and couldn’t get it done. In between there, they call on a guy that is a two-way guy and he did what he needed to do— smoke the ball up the middle. But free bases in that inning is not a good idea.”
On if Dean Curley’s defensive issues are mentally or physical
“Just mental. There’s always physical parts to it but just mental. Like I said, I don’t know if anybody for either team gets the guy on the first play but I’m sure because the throw was high, maybe they could, I don’t know. You start thinking about it.”
On why they stuck with Nate Snead throughout the ninth inning
“That’s our guy. That’s our guy in that situation. So got a bunch of right-handed hitters coming up. Lefties, it doesn’t matter, his split stats are the same. So it was his ball game and unfortunately we didn’t make plays behind him in order for him to get it done. One strike away from still overcoming and getting it done but you have good hitters you have to get out and it didn’t happen.”
On trying to instill confidence in Curley defensively while not knowing what they’re getting from him right now
“Now we need to win. I mean, we needed to win tonight, too, but we’re getting towards the stretch part of the season, obviously getting to May, so we just need to find a way to put nine guys out there that are going to help us win.”
On if he liked the quality of Tennessee’s at-bats against LSU starting pitcher Kade Anderson:
“I mean, you got two first-rounders going at it, so there were a couple where it seemed rather painless on the pitcher, if that’s the right word to use. But at the same time, he was spinning that breaking ball as good as he had. If you watch prior games, he’ll make plenty of mistakes and tonight he didn’t make very many at all.”
On what he saw from Tennessee pitcher Liam Doyle in his start against LSU
“He was awesome. I mean, he had a blister on his finger he battled through. He’s not the personality to handle a two-hour rain delay very well. He was up and down like crazy, burning a bunch of calories. But he still went out there and pitched. I don’t know that his staff was the most dynamic all year long, but he certainly pitched as well as he has all year long.”
