Tennessee baseball head coach Josh Elander met with the media following the Vols’ 4-2 series-evening loss to Georgia Saturday in Athens.
Elander discussed starter Landon Mack’s outing, what he saw from his offense and more.
Mack statistically had his roughest outing of the season while UT’s offense couldn’t capitalize on late-game opportunities.
Georgia never trailed Saturday, setting the stage for a Sunday series rubber match in Foley Field at 1 p.m. ET.
RECAP: Tennessee Baseball Suffers Close Series-Evening Loss to Georgia in Game Two
To WATCH Elander’s post-game media availability, click HERE.
See everything Elander said below.
On Landon Mack’s outing:
“Best I’ve seen him so far as a Vol. He’s just a lot of excitement going into the next week. He is always going to compete. Up to 100 (mph). Breaking ball was good. The overhead breaking ball, he clipped a couple of those tonight. I know he is going to compete and give us a chance to win. He was really good.”
On the offensive execution:
“Second and third. Two outs. That’s a big one. What is my task and how do I execute it? Reese (Chapman) is up there and takes a little bit too big of a swing. Comes off the breaking ball right there. You just need to stay through the middle of the field nice and easy – collect those RBIs and move up. We get in those spots right there, you don’t get a lot of redo’s. So, you’ve got to get it done when you get those chances to drive guys in.”
On hard hit balls and nothing to show for it:
“Yeah it is baseball. It’s going to happen, right? Jay (Abernathy) smashes that ball. I thought it was a great swing. Stone (Lawless) lands on one. Again, sometimes they aren’t going to find the slots or whatever that you are looking for. Besides the few spots we have chances to drive guys in, execution I thought out guys competed well tonight.”
On getting out of bases loaded, no outs jam with just one run in the sixth:
“(Landon) Mack kept us in it, which is huge. We run him back out there. You look at it and they got three lefties in-a-row. The numbers say it is an easy move to go to the lefty. Appy (Cam Appenzeller), it’s not the coziest welcome to the SEC but he is a guy capable of getting those outs at any point. They hit a ball in the four-hole that just gets through. Reese (Chapman) plays catch and does a great job with Stone (Lawless) and he gets out of it. Landon (Mack) was phenomenal tonight and I thought Appy (Cam Appenzeller) was equally as good. Those two will be a good combo moving forward.”
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On how important it is to get a win in Sunday’s rubber match:
“It’s just another chance to play with these guys on Sunday. We’ve talked about it all fall, and we haven’t done it as well as we needed to up to this point. But we talked about it… looking at last year, I think 80 percent of our series were 1-1 going into Sunday.
“That’s what this league is about. If you go into the league expecting to win all 30 games, you’re a little bit crazy. So, a great opportunity for our guys on the road to bounce back from a mostly cleanly-played game. Let’s see what they got on Sunday.”
On where he feels his team is at right now:
“I think we are still figuring things out. We’re taking some good swings, the pitching I feel really good about, the defense continues to get better, but there’s some little things. Situational execution, some base-running things that need to be cleaned up, and they will be.”
On the key for a different outcome Sunday:
“Compete. Number one. It’s Sunday. (Evan) Blanco does a great job of that. I know we have Krenz (Brayden Krenzel) ready in the pen to rock and roll, but it’s about competing on Sunday and expecting some punches to be thrown back and forth. Anything can happen, and it’s one of those deals on Sunday that you better be ready to hook it up for nine innings.”
On the frustration of the missed opportunities late in the game:
“Just credit to Georgia’s pitching staff. They did a good job of keeping us off-balance. (Caden) Aoki did a good job and then the guy at the beginning (Dylan Vigue) did a really good job of pitching underneath the strike zone, and our guys were on top of it a little bit. They did a good job to get him out of the game, but just one or two swings away is the difference tonight – maybe hitting a ball right at a guy – but I thought they competed well.”
