Diamond Vols 3-2-1: After missed opportunity, Vols host Dawgs
The Tennessee baseball team picked up a single victory in its weekend series against Mississippi State, but the Vols dropped two winnable games in what could have been a program defining series in head coach Tony Vitello’s second season.
Let’s look back at the missed opportunity and look ahead to a weekend series against the conference’s hottest team.
THREE OBSERVATIONS
1. How about that starting pitching? Mississippi State came into the weekend with one of the nation’s best lineups. It felt like if Tennessee was going to win a game the Vols were going to have their bats produce some runs. They didn’t get it done, as the lineup only scored 10 runs on the weekend.
The performances it got on the mound from Garrett Stallings and Zach Linginfelter were stellar, though. The juniors turned in their best performances of the season, especially given the competition.
Stallings threw 7.2 innings Friday night, allowing only six hits and two runs while striking out seven.
The junior was rolling and had five 1-2-3 innings. He seemed like he was going to make it through eight retiring the first two batters of the inning, but lost it after that as the top of the Bulldogs order loaded the bases.
Garrett Crochet allowed one of the runs to score, but the performance by Stallings was phenomenal and should have been good enough to get the win.
Linginfelter’s performance Saturday was the most impressive of his career, in my opinion. The talented junior didn’t have his best stuff but he mixed pitches and locations well on his fastball and held the Bulldogs dominant lineup to only one run and five hits in his 6.2 innings.
Doing what he did while only striking out three and coming off his worst start of the season is very impressive.
2. No medals given out — Tony Vitello was very candid when asked about what it meant to the program that they won a game and played Mississippi State closely in the two losses: They aren’t handing out medals for close losses.
He demanded more from his team, saying no one from Phillip Fulmer to himself thought that trying hard was enough.
I understand his frustrations. That was a series they at the very least could have won, if not should have won.
Tennessee scored two runs in the first inning Friday night but couldn’t muster a single insurance run in the next eight innings of play. That’s a situation where Tennessee needed to pick up a win, especially after using Crochet for four innings.
Tennessee was given a gift on Sunday due to the fact JT Gill only pitched one inning for the Bulldogs and seemed to be struggling with an illness. Tennessee couldn’t capitalize, losing 7-5 in a game where it stranded a runner on third with one out or less twice.
Tennessee was gifted both of its runs Saturday night, so some of it balances out. Nevertheless that was a missed opportunity this weekend for a really good series win.
3. Very little room for error from the offense — We already knew this going into the weekend, but it was exemplified against Mississippi State: Tennessee doesn’t have the ability to get away with stranding runners or base running mistakes.
The Vols had both this weekend and it came back to bite them.
Tennessee doesn’t have the power to easily pick up many runs on homers. The Vols only sent one out of the park this weekend and only have seven homers total in SEC play. The Vols need better timely hitting if they want to achieve their goals.
Tennessee also can’t afford poor performances from Andre Lipcius or Al Soularie. Both were overall solid on the weekend as Lipcius got three hits Friday and Soularie got four Sunday, but when they went 0-for-7 with only a walk Saturday the Vols offense went limp.
That’s a lot to put on two players, but if Lipcius has another stretch like he did to open the season the Vols would be in trouble.
TWO QUESTIONS
Can Will Neely go next weekend?
Will Neely went down in the fourth inning of Sunday’s game when he took a hard line drive to his ankle. The senior exited the game after the play ended his day short.
Vitello said postgame that nothing was broken and that it was just a bad bruise. He didn’t seem to know the timetable for a return other than saying he believed it would be “sooner rather than later."
Something to note is that Tennessee plays a Thursday-Saturday series this weekend opposed to the normal Friday-Sunday. This would give Neely only six days to recover, and for a pitcher that has struggled at times this year, it doesn’t seem smart to rush him back to action.
So where does Tennessee turn if he can’t go?
It feels obvious to me that you turn to Garrett Crochet. He usually relieves Neely on Sunday’s and has been the Vols best reliever and pitches in long relief situations.
A month ago, I would’ve said Sean Hunley, but the sophomore has really fallen off lately and lost his spot as the guaranteed midweek starter.
Can Zach Daniels contribute?
Before Zach Daniels’ pinch-hit two run homer in Sunday’s 7-5 loss, the sophomore had been absolutely woeful on the season.
Daniels was hitting under .200 and hadn’t shown the power that he did last season when he hit five homers as a freshman.
Daniels' natural talent is easily noticeable, as the 6’1, 190 pound sophomore has good power and runs well.
If his home run Sunday can provide him some confidence he could be a real spark to this team. Daniels isn’t about to go hit .300, but he has some power that this team could desperately use.
I’ll be interested to see if Vitello gives him a mid-week start against Lipscomb this week to see if he can build on it, or see if it was just one good at-bat.
Getting some production from the young center fielder would be huge for this team and the program as a whole going forward.
ONE PREDICTION
Another 1-2 weekend series is coming
Georgia is one of the hottest teams in the country. The Bulldogs currently sit in first place in the SEC standings with a 9-3 record in league play, coming off a home series win over Vanderbilt.
I think Tennessee matches up better against the Bulldogs than they do against Vanderbilt or Mississippi State though. Tennessee is going to struggle to score six or seven runs against good competition, and holding offenses like Mississippi State and Vanderbilt to only two or three run is very difficult.
Georgia is on the other side of the spectrum. The Bulldogs rank second in the SEC in team ERA, but are only 10th in the league in batting average and are tied for seventh in runs scored.
Tennessee can hold Georgia to low scoring baseball games, and against elite competition, that’s the Vols best chance to win.
That combined with the series being in Knoxville, I don’t think the Bulldogs sweep Tennessee.
I said three weeks ago that that should be Tennessee’s goal for the three series gauntlet to win a game each weekend. The Vols have done it so far. Let’s see if they can do it one more time. After that it’s time to start tallying some SEC series wins.