You don’t have to talk to Tony Vitello long to understand the identity of his team. It’s pitching and defense.

It’s the bread and butter that has given the Vols success just in his second-year as head coach. However, the last two weekends have seen Vitello's club stumble, mostly because of some poor pitching from the Vols’ starters.

Let’s take a look at the statistics and see what components lead to Tennessee’s pitchers being successful.

Garrett Stallings

Tennessee’s junior ace has completely changed his game in 2019. His offseason development of his breaking ball has allowed him to finish off batters and become one of the league’s top starters.

In his first six conference starts he was fantastic, going over five innings in five of the six performances.

However, in his last two starts, he’s only gone 3.2 and 4.1 innings, respectively.

While breaking down his numbers, I separated his five starts that he went over five innings, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Georgia and Kentucky, and the three starts he pitched five innings or less, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri.

Even though his increased strikeouts have led to increased success, it isn’t what has dictated a good start from a bad start for him

In his five quality starts, he’s struck out 6.2 batters a game to just 5.3 in his three lesser starts, but this number can mostly be explained by the lesser amount of innings pitched. This is shown by his one strikeout an inning in quality starts, but 1.2 strikeouts per inning in his lesser starts

The numbers carry on to walks where Stallings walks .21 batters an inning in his quality starts, but just .15 in his starts that he struggles.

Stallings finds his most success when he attacks batters. Stallings is best when he pitches to contact and can get ahead of batters.

In his five quality starts 42% of his outs were recorded on the first or second pitch of the at-bat, while in his lesser starts that number is cut in half with just 19%.

This fact is backed up even farther in that in his five strong performances he recorded 88% of his outs in pitcher’s counts or even counts. In his three lesser starts, that number drops to 79%.

Stallings numbers haven’t dropped off a wall in the last few weeks, but if Tennessee is going to go as far as they want, they need the elite Stallings they’ve had for most of the season. Stallings, at his best, attacks batters and gets ahead in the account. He dares batters to beat him. He doesn’t beat around the bush.

Zach Linginfelter

Zach Linginfelter has easily been the Vols' most inconsistent pitcher this season. The junior’s talent is obvious, as the tall right-hander regularly pumps mid-90s with nasty off-speed pitches. It’s easy to see, while despite a mediocre season, Linginfelter is likely destined to forgo his senior season.

For Linginfelter, I divided his performances into three categories. Games he went deep in: South Carolina, Mississippi State, and Kentucky. Games he was okay in: Auburn and Arkansas saw him go 4.1 and 4.2 innings, respectively, while giving his team a chance. Finally, his three horrific SEC starts where he failed to reach the fourth inning: Vanderbilt, Georgia, and Missouri.

The first thing that was apparent to me was far from surprising for anyone who has watched him pitch: He’s pretty dang good if he doesn’t walk people

In his three good starts, he doesn’t have a single walk. In his two middle of the road starts he averages .3 walks per inning, but in his three awful starts he averages a walk an inning.

What was surprising though was his strikeout numbers. Linginfelter averages just .62 strikeouts an inning in his best starts, while averaging 1.44 in his mediocre starts and 1.2 an inning in his poor starts.

It’s no surprise that when you get ahead in the count you make more outs, but it is odd to see that Linginfelter strikes out more batters in games where he is falling behind

In his three good starts, 73% of at-bats end with Linginfelter even or ahead in the count. That number drops to just 52% in his starts against Arkansas and Auburn and drops to 45% in his three poor starts.

Maybe this is oversimplifying things, but it seems like Linginfelter is best when he just goes out there relaxed and doesn’t strikeout as many batters. Vitello has said he can get in his own head and the numbers seem to back it up. He may get less strikeouts when he gets ahead in counts, but he gets more guys out.

He’ll never be a quick pitcher like Stallings, but it seems like he’d benefit from just relaxing and letting his stuff work.

Garrett Crochet

Breaking down Garrett Crochet’s numbers are interesting because he is the only one of the trio that has both bullpen and starter action. While Stallings and Linginfelter both have eight outings, Crochet has nine.

Crochet’s issues these last two weeks don’t seem to be because he’s starting since the sophomore was good in his first two starts. Instead, I just split the data up between his last two starts and his previous seven outings.

There aren’t a lot of radical changes in the numbers between his first seven appearances and his last two, but the one that really stands out is his ability to get the first batter of an inning, or the first batter he faces if he comes in relief, out.

His first seven appearances saw him get the first man out 66% of the time, but in his last two appearances that number dropped to 44%.

The rest of his numbers have just made gradual drops in his last two outings.

The amount of times he got a hitter out on the first or second pitch of the inning went from 22% to 20%.

The number of at-bats that ended in an even or pitchers count dropped from 70% to 63%.

Crochet’s strikeout per inning numbers have really dropped in his last two outings. In his first seven appearances Crochet was getting nearly half of his outs with strikeouts, 1.3. However, that number has dropped to one an inning in his last two starts.

More than walking batters, Crochet has just got hit harder in his last two starts. The left-hander was giving up 1.1 hits an inning in his first seven appearances, but that number has leaped to 1.6 in his last two.

For Crochet, the biggest difference in his last two starts from his first seven appearances mostly seems to be the rate at which he is getting the leadoff man out. If he can get back to starting innings off strong, it would seem that the rest of his numbers would likely follow.