CLEMSON, SC — Chase Burns waved his hand towards Tony Vitello.
The Tennessee head coach stepped out of the dugout and made his way towards the mound. Clemson had the bases loaded, the winning run 90-feet away and no outs in the 10th inning.
Burns waved him off, Vitello retreated back to the dugout and Burns tossed his sixth strike out before Tennessee turned a double play to get out of the inning unscathed. Four innings later, Hunter Ensley drove in the go-ahead run to lift the 2-seed Vols past 1-seed Clemson, 6-5 in 14 innings at Doug Kingsmore Stadium late Saturday.
"I don't think I've ever (waved off) a coach before," Burns said. "It was a big opportunity and I thought I could go back out there. I knew my body the best, so when I saw (Vitello) come out, I waved him off."
"We had a conversation before the game," Vitello added. "It was (Burns') game. It was going to be a combination of two guys that are going to be first rounders and are going to have lengthy careers in the big leagues, not just because of their stuff, but how they go about their business. That was what we thought of as our best punch and we were going to start (Seth Halvorsen) later in the deal if we needed to. Just expected him to come to me and when he did, he said, 'I can get the team a few more outs.'
"To me, the different might have been, in the entire game were just those extra outs when we were wanting to take him out and a couple extra too when he refused to leave the game."
Burns, who came in relief of starter Chase Dollander in the fifth inning, gave up an RBI single as part of a four-run frame but settled in, going 6.1 innings with eight punch outs.
Amid some early-season struggles, Burns was taken out of the starting rotation back in early April as part of a change to the lineup that propelled Tennessee to mid-season surge, but Burns embraced his new role over the last month and a half.
The highly effective freshman from a year ago who was expected to be one of Tennessee's most dominant arms in a pitching staff full of them put on full display how he has improved coming out of the bullpen.
It started in the Vols' extra innings win over Vanderbilt on April 21. His latest outing now has Tennessee on the cusp of its third-straight super regional berth.
"(Burns) was incredible on the mound, but the presence was more incredible than anything," Vitello said. "At one point in the dugout, he's got (shortstop) Austin Jaslove massaging his arm, but it was, 'I want to do this for the team' and 'I want this for the team.' He laid it on the line."
*****
– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.
– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.
– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @TMansfieldMedia, @ByNoahTaylor, @RealTBannerman, @RyanTSylvia, @Dale_Dowden, @ShayneP_Media, @TylerIvens.
