HOUSTON -- There was a big league pitcher strutting atop the big league mound inside of the Houston Astro's Minute Maid Park on Friday night.
And he was only making his third career start as an 18-year-old true freshman.
Tennessee right-hander Chase Burns received the ball for the Vols in their first game in the Shriners Hospitals for Children College Classic and shined once again.
“He was outstanding," Vols head coach Tony Vitello said following the game. "Without sounding like it’s a boring thing or a bad thing, he’s just kind of been the same guy. That was who he’s been in scrimmages and also in the first two weekends for the most part. He just happened to do it against a more talented team than we’ve played to date.”
Tennessee lost to the top-ranked Longhorns 7-2, but not because of Burns' effort.
Burns struck out 10, allowed just one earned run on two hits and only gave up one walk on 81 pitches over the course of five innings of work.
"I think the root of what went on tonight is that Chase Burns was outstanding and I chose not to ride him," Vitello said. "We chose to ride Camden Sewell cause he did a lot for us in the middle of the week."
Sewell's outing didn't go as well as it did on Tuesday in Tennessee's 4-1 midweek win over East Tennessee State.
Entering a 1-1 game, Sewell immediately worked into trouble by giving up a leadoff double, an RBI double and a walk. It sparked back-to-back three run innings for Texas in the sixth and seventh inning, respectively.
"He was going a lot faster than he normally is out there and I think he was just jacked up," Vitello said. "These guys have been looking forward to this tournament for awhile and there’s a lot of emotion in the dugout and in pre-game. The guys wanted to start the weekend off well and they didn’t and I think we learned a lot of valuable lessons as it relates to handling emotions and ups and downs of what can be perceived as a big game even though they’re all big games.”
Vitello admitted that part of Sewell's (L, 2-1) issues centered around coming off of a 52-pitch performance against ETSU earlier in the week. Still, Vitello couldn't help but think about what might have been had he stuck with Burns a little bit longer.
"If we’re in league play or as we get deeper in the year, (Burns will) be given the opportunity to take ownership of the game which he did to be honest with you," Vitello said. "We were hoping we would score and give Cam (Sewell) the lead. But he went out there and they out-classed us the last four innings of the game. It was a four-inning battle.
"Again, it’s pretty damn obvious. You’d like to flip flop, but you always take a guy out too early if they score on the reliever and vice versa if you leave him out there and they score on your guy."
Tennessee (8-1) has no time to sulk following its loss to Texas (10-0). 15 hours after losing their opener in Houston, the Vols will take on a Baylor (5-4) team that knocked off No. 23 UCLA 2-1 earlier in the day on Friday.
“We’ve got (adversity)," Vitello said. "It’s late (at night). We’re fortunate enough we only play mid-day tomorrow, but we play another great program and it’s on this stage once again. Two, they had high hopes going into tonight and it didn’t go well for them, so how they handle that as well as the coaches is going to be a big deal.”
Righty Chase Dollander (1-0, 2.70 ERA) is expected to start for the Vols, while fellow righty Jake Jackson (1-1, 2.25 ERA) is expected to start for Baylor. First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 CT.
