The Tennessee Volunteers and head coach Tony Vitello opened up the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama with a disappointing loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Vitello ended up needing to use eight different pitchers in the loss. That included AJ Russell and, after the game, Vitello explained what Tennessee’s plan is for Russell for the rest of the SEC Tournament.
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“Best case scenario, if we stick around long enough, he would able to do that,” Tony Vitello said. “If not, then he’ll just jump into a situation where he can face hitters again. We’ve kind of beat up the whole bullpen situation, so having guys standing in there I think is beneficial for him.”
By the time AJ Russell came in, the score was 7-4 and the Volunteers needed to hold the Commodores from pulling away any more than they already had. Russell then got himself into a jam with a hit and then a hit-by-pitch. Still, two strikeouts helped get him out of it unscathed.
It was just the one inning for AJ Russell. As Tony Vitello explained, part of why he only pitched one inning was the pitch count that the team had on him.
“Pitch count-wise was more like 25 to 35. The fact he kind of got in a jam — maybe if that double play is turned over, we send him back out for a hitter or two, but with the inning kind of going the way it did, it was kind of a group decision led by Frank [Anderson], let’s just move on to the next guy. It was good for him to get out there.”
This season, AJ Russell has been limited due to injuries and that’s taken away a potentially vital arm for the Volunteers all season long. Because of those injuries, he’s only thrown 13.1 innings all season long. That comes after he threw 30.1 innings out of the bullpen as a freshman with a 0.89 ERA and 47 strikeouts.
Unfortunately for Tennessee, the pitchers who came in after AJ Russell couldn’t stop the bleeding and Vanderbilt ended up adding six more runs in the innings after him. On top of that, the offense never got going and it ended up being a 13-4 loss for Tennessee.
With the loss, Tennessee is moving on in the SEC Tournament to play the Texas A&M Aggies, who also lost their game on Wednesday.
The post Tony Vitello describes Tennessee’s plan for AJ Russell for rest of SEC Tournament appeared first on On3.