When Does the Vols Play Again Baseball

KNOXVILLE – There'southward more to this than baseball game.

That isn't widely understood about what's taking place at the Academy of Tennessee, considering unless yous're on campus and in Lindsey Nelson Stadium, yous won't observe information technology.

And these days, information technology isn't easy to go into that stadium. Seats are more often than not sold out. People are waiting in lines only for standing-room-only tickets, which sounds like torture to me. I mean, don't they know how long a college baseball game game can last?

Doesn't matter here. The Vols' baseball programme nether Tony Vitello is having a moment. A big one. Tape-setting performances, rowdy overflow crowds, creative celebrations, a 33-3 tape.

They are even so ranked No. ane after taking two of three this past weekend from Alabama in an emotional, intense, cute mess of a rivalry series that for iii days felt like a runaway stallion, fast and free and headed wherever it was bound to go. Be that some meltdown or whatever else seemed about to spark any minute – in the stands, on the field, betwixt players, coaches, umpires. You lot couldn't accept your eyes abroad.

VOLS Baseball game:'We trust each other:' Tennessee baseball rolls by Alabama in back-to-back blowouts to win fifth SEC series

SUSPENSION:Tony Vitello receives four-game suspension afterwards ejection in Tennessee baseball vs. Alabama

While terribly uncommon in baseball, that sort of interest has go common with these Vols. Their version of baseball game is distinct from anybody else's past miles.

That, however, carries a vibe a lot nastier than polite claps and "Accept Me Out To The Ballgame." Hospitality isn't what's happening here. Tennessee fans cheered loudly Saturday when a Vols hitter lined a hot-shot foul ball into Alabama's dugout. They chanted "M-V-P" at Alabama'southward catcher later a few throwing errors – and some of them kept chanting it during a blowout win the next solar day.

"This is new territory for the entire program," fifth-yr senior catch Evan Russell said. "I'one thousand non going to sit here and say that the fans are acting like they are used to it, because they accept aught to exist used to. … Nosotros've been disrespected every bit an entire athletic plan for so long that once we start winning and succeeding, we've even so got that trivial mindset of underdogs. Now that nosotros've got something to fight with, we're going to bring a good fight. The atmosphere has been unbelievable.

"Hats off to Alabama for playing such a skillful weekend on some chaos, really."

Indeed, it was a fun weekend. Waiting on a pulverization keg to see if friction match meets fuse can be exhilarating, only it's likewise exhausting. Past the end of the wild three-game series, it seems everyone was spent.

Such a fervent atmosphere reflected the pent-upwards frustration of a fanbase long starved for a big-time winner in a prominent sport. And how much that has fit the brazen mentality instilled by Vitello, who arrived in 2017 and has rapidly turned a middling program in a mediocre stadium into an elite ane.

The Vols announced themselves as such last season by reaching the College Earth Serial. They've validated their authenticity in 2022.

While seeming a loose cannon himself at times, Vitello is immensely popular among Tennessee fans, much the same way Bruce Pearl was once in basketball game. Vitello is described equally both a fiery workaholic and someone who acts more than as a player than a coach. Indeed, he runs a program that "allows (players) to play with the freedom and play hard and be themselves," said assistant coach Josh Elander.

"I think that'southward been our magic recipe since we've been here," Elander said.

They are in your face and unapologetically then. They'll tell you how much they like beingness villains. How much they savour having a target on their backs, which is good because they've certain got ane on there. They'll say they feed off it.

These Vols will tell you lot how they have meliorate players and are "going to come out and punch them in the throat," every bit freshman outfielder Jared Dickey of Mt. Juliet put it Friday night.

No, actually. That's how these guys talk.

Information technology'southward performance art. Information technology's amusement. Information technology's ane part baseball and some other pro wrestling, and they are enjoying being the heels.

Love them or hate them: These Vols are past far the best show in college baseball correct now.

He wasn't wrong, though

A strange thing happened to Tennessee's team this past week.

Well, many odd things happened. Only earlier its No. two starting pitcher was sidelined past a line bulldoze to his throwing arm or Vitello was ejected and suspended iv games for bumping an umpire, or fifty-fifty before the Vols smacked seven dwelling house runs in two days without their coach, something more unsettling transpired.

Information technology started when the Vols actually lost a game. Then they lost another one.

The first was to Tennessee Tech in a midweek, woods-bat game, catastrophe a 23-game win streak. The next loss – at habitation to Alabama – spoiled a celebrated 12-0 start to SEC play. Afterward winning Friday night'south series opener half dozen-3, the Crimson Tide ran out of the dugout and celebrated enthusiastically, as yous'd await from a team that had just taken down No. 1 on the road.

Didn't sit well with the Vols, though.

"We're going to come out tomorrow hot, and they're not going to have a risk, in my opinion," said inferior relief pitcher Will Mabrey, who is from Cookeville. "They were also partying like they thought they'd won the Earth Series. Nosotros'll let know how it tastes tomorrow."

Mabrey caught oestrus for those comments. Vitello didn't like them, which is saying something considering the Vols' typical tenor about pharynx-punching and the like.

But Mabrey'southward words spread on social media because they carried a dish-information technology-out-simply-can't-take-it quality that was being enjoyed by fans around the SEC and college baseball.

Brash Tennessee was finally stumbling later weeks of fur-glaze sharing subsequently home runs, taunts and breast pounds on base paths and other sharable, celebratory indulgences – like Luc Lipcius touching home plate with one finger vs. Missouri – that were designed to make baseball's purists cringe in disapproval.

"It's fun to have a target on your back," Lipcius told reporters later the Missouri game. "It's either y'all're with us or you lot're against us. If yous're against us, so nosotros couldn't give one heck about you. If you lot're with us, you lot're riding or dying with us. People haven't really liked united states of america always since we've been good. I call up they're used to us being simply the people that lay downward for you. But now that we're hither, it'southward ruffling some feathers, and people actually don't like it.

"I think the style of ball we play, too – a lot of emotion – it gets under people'southward pare. Merely let them do whatsoever they desire. We're going to continue winning."

Mabrey, information technology turns out, wasn't incorrect about the Alabama series. Tennessee did exactly what he said. It routed the side by side two games by a combined score of 24-6.

"They are the No. ane team in the land for a reason," Blood-red Tide coach Brad Bohannon said. "You lot don't smoke-and-mirror or luck your fashion into 33-three and 14-1 in league play. … One thing you lot say for Tennessee: Those kids have a lot of fun playing, and they play with a lot of energy and passion. And I respect that. On top of the physical talent, the way that they play is a competitive advantage for them."

The Vols won the final two games of the serial without Vitello, who was tossed in the first inning of Saturday's Game ii. At that indicate, UT was in the midst of a two-game losing streak and had just lost their starting pitcher to injury later ane inning.

Maybe Vitello didn't mean to incite his crowd and team in a timely manner, but he did.

I'd have loved to get Vitello's have, merely he isn't quoted in this cavalcade because a planned post-series interview didn't happen because he was suspended.

Never a dull moment, yous empathise.

"I mean, that's but the kind of guy he is," fifth-yr senior relief pitcher Redmond Walsh said of Vitello. "He instills competitiveness. ... Vitello was what this plan needed, maybe a trivial bit of youth, a little fleck more charisma to him. He brought an energy that kind of only turned everything around."

A team they love to hate

Other college football programs have more than tradition and titles.

But they fabricated a "30 for 30" documentary nigh the Miami Hurricanes.

They made 2 of them, really, and information technology wasn't because of their overwhelming success as much as their overwhelming swagger. People nonetheless beloved them for information technology. Or else they withal love to hate them for it. Either style, they remember them.

Russell laughed at the suggestion that his baseball game plan could 1 day be viewed in a similar fashion every bit the polarizing Canes. "But," he added, "I practise enjoy the comparison."

"If they're not talking well-nigh u.s.a.," he said, "that probably means we're non doing something right."

Tennessee has fun to get itself going. Only it likewise can take the other team off its game.

Russell offered insight into peradventure a method behind Tennessee'south madness, saying that "opposing teams, if they are focused on what nosotros're doing and how we're celebrating and all that, and then that's more of an advantage for us."

True. One concern here – and it's legitimate – would be that it'due south not far-fetched to envision that at some point an opposing pitcher will take exception to Tennessee's theatrics and send a fastball into an orange batting helmet, immigration benches.

That, too, is baseball. The unwritten rules of little slights and perceived boldness and easily wounded pride have governed it since before all of usa were built-in.

And still ...

Every bit a team, Tennessee figured out a long time agone, I believe, that offer upwardly bulletin-board material isn't equally grievous a sin equally it might exist in football game or other, brawnier sports. Existence locked in to play your best baseball is not commonly tied to existence aroused.

Even if it was, opponents don't demand additional motivation against these Vols anyway.

"If the success starts getting to people'southward heads," Russell said, "then that would exist a time for us to kind of tone dorsum and make adjustments. I think it's more playing with passion and actually having a desire to observe a way to win. I don't think in that location'southward a single person in the locker room that is making it about themselves, fifty-fifty if it appears that jubilant and stuff is kind of disrespecting the game.

"But if y'all lookout the game, we play hard, we throw strikes, we run the bases hard and we take really good at-bats. You tin say what you desire about our celebrations, but at the end of the day it'south hard to find a problem with really how we play the game."

For nearly two months, they'd fabricated the extremely difficult look ridiculously easy.

Too easy? Peradventure.

The Vols' invincibility couldn't last. Of the best teams in college baseball game'south history, well-nigh logged at to the lowest degree ten-xv losses in a season.

In the g scheme of a long season, this calendar week'due south plough of fortune for the Vols was inevitable and not that large a bargain. Not yet at to the lowest degree.

In that location will surely be more defeats for Tennessee. More reasons to feel slighted by celebrations on the other side, and more delight when it happens, and the Big Orange target on their backs will only abound larger as the postseason draws closer with the clear goal of winning it all in Omaha, not merely getting dorsum at that place for the second straight twelvemonth.

Meantime, this ride volition continue to be a lot of things.

Just it won't exist boring.

Baseball might have that problem. Tennessee baseball does not.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.

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Source: https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/college/ut/2022/04/19/tennessee-vols-college-baseball-best-show-2022-season/9532704002/

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