Everything Josh Elander said on the series opening 9-7 win over Oklahoma

Tennessee plated four runs in the third and tallied a pair of two-run home runs to take control of Oklahoma for the 9-7 win Thursday night in the series opener from Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.  

The Vols (36-18, 14-14 SEC) feasted behind the two, two-run home runs from Levi Clark and Henry Ford while Blake Grimmer and Reese Chapman produced RBI doubles. Manny Marin drove in two runs – included a key run of insurance in the ninth inning – and Blaine Brown drove in a run as well.

The Sooners (31-19, 13-15 SEC) tallied 17 hits on the night and saw the leadoff man reach five times, but tallied just two hits with a runner in scoring position in the ballgame.  

Tegan Kuhns (W, 5-4) earned the win on the mound, though he didn’t have his best stuff in the five-inning, five-run and 12-hit performance. Cameron Johnson (6-2) is charged for the loss after surrendering four runs in 2.2 innings of work. Bo Rhudy (S, 3) earned the four-out save after entering the game with Tennessee leading by one run.    

Tennessee skipper Josh Elander spoke briefly following Thursday’s series opener with Oklahoma from Oklahoma City’s Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, home of ‘Comets,’ the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  

Up Next: Tennessee and Oklahoma battle for Game 2 of the series on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET. The game will once again be streamed on the SEC Network+.

On the grittiness and effort to get across the finish line…

“I think gritty is a great word. I love the way they competed. I mean, got punched in the mouth right out of the gate and good job by our offense by staying in it, stacking a couple of good innings back and back. Just playing good baseball, keeping the ball in front and Garrett (Wright) throwing a guy out at third base. They had a couple outs on the bases that I think maybe end up one of the differences in the game. Great job by Appy (Cam Appenzeller). I thought he threw the ball really, really well. Tegan (Kuhns) didn’t have his best stuff tonight. Competed. I mean, he was a warrior out there for him to get us over 100 pitches and a lot of really good things. Anytime you can win a first game of a series, we’ll take it.”

On how big it was for Tegan Kuhns to get through five innings and hand the ball off to Cam Appenzeller for the sixth…

“It was massive. We needed it. And again, it wasn’t a ton of takeoff on the heater today, but you just got to find a way to get it done this time of year. I thought he did a really good job of competing and it’s kind of the opposite with our approach versus their guy, we’re trying to get him out of the game as soon as we could. I thought our guys did a really good job of kind of grinding them down. But Tegan, that one big strikeout there in the middle innings to get out when we got some ducks on the pond, just easy guy to bet on, great competitiveness. And I know he’ll be ready to go next week again.”

On what he saw form Bo Rhudy to slam the door shut for the four-out save…

“Just the heater looked better. I thought he had more conviction when he was throwing it. I told him after his last outing, “Hey, make sure when you come in, you’re cutting it loose from the jump.” And I thought he did a good job of that. Kind of a quirky deal with the timeout deal or whatnot, but a good job of responding, getting the next guy out and then competing because their hitters did a good job with two strikes. Just kind of flaring balls oppo all night and extending innings. But really good to see Rhudy just kind of settle in there and put an end to that game.”

On the offensive approach with runners on and finding clutch hits to pull away…

“They out-hit us by a ton (17 to 7), but I think our execution was good. If I was greedy, we would have liked a few more there. We’d get the bases loaded and Blaine (Brown) does a good job right there getting the bases loaded. That’s a really good arm and that’s a win for our offense to be able to get that closer in the game on a Thursday night, because they’ll have to use him again. But again, at this time of year, it’s about having one more run than the other team. But I thought Manny’s (Marin) at-bat was massive to get on top of that fastball and drive it up the middle and make that adjustment mid-AB (at-bat). So, I need more of that this weekend.”

On what he wants to see from his team tomorrow…

“They’re going to have plenty of time to reset. We got the same night game tomorrow, so we’ll stick with the same schedule. Just want him to get out the gates. I know (Evan) Blanco – he was saying how much he liked this place and how he’s excited to throw here. So, we’ll hand him the ball and then our offense needs to do the same thing. Just grind away with the starter, get into the bullpen and attack the next thing.”