Vanderbilt player says shouting match with Louisville pitcher sparked Commodores
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Vanderbilt and Louisville played a close game on Friday night from start to finish. The Commodores took a 1-0 lead in the third inning, but the Cardinals would go up 2-1 in the seventh inning. At the end of the top of the eighth inning, things got heated between Louisville P Luke Smith and Vanderbilt 1B Julian Infante.
As you can see in the ESPN video below, much of what Smith said was not suitable for TV:
The Louisville pitcher stared him down and let him hear it 😳 pic.twitter.com/qrnX1Z0EGq
— ESPN (@espn) June 22, 2019
The exchange appears to have sparked the Commodores bats. A two-run ninth inning put Vanderbilt back up 3-2, the game’s final score.
After the game, Commodores DH Philip Clarke pointed to Smith’s outburst.
“That was the big turning point in the game,” Clarke said, per The Tennesseean. “Things like that definitely fire us up.”
For the Commodores, it was important to avoid simply playing ticked off. The team needed to focus its energy.
“I knew at some point they would land a punch, and it was going to be a matter of how we responded,” coach Tim Corbin told reporters. “You can’t play this game angry. You have to contain your emotions.”
Commodores OF Pat DeMarco echoed that point.
“We try not to give energy to the other team,” DeMarco said. “We know how that works. (We) focus the energy on us, and we came out on the right side.”
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
