The Tennessee baseball team turned in an impressive weekend in the Bluegrass State, sweeping the Kentucky Wildcats. The series sweep was the Vols first road sweep of a SEC opponent since sweeping Georgia in 2010. Let’s look back at the rewarding week, and look forward to a challenging SEC road trip.
Three Observations
1. Bring out the brooms — Tennessee picked up its first SEC series sweep of the year this weekend in what was a dominating series over the Kentucky Wildcats.
Tennessee outscored Kentucky 28-5 on the weekend and 24-3 the last two games of the series.
Tennessee’s pitchers absolutely dominated all weekend, giving up runs on four solo homers. Kentucky didn’t threaten often and when they did they found a way to run themselves out of scoring opportunities.
Tennessee’s starting pitchers turned in 19.2 innings on the weekend, allowing all five of the Vols runs, but going deep into games and keeping the load off the bullpen.
The hitting wasn’t as good as the numbers made it look, but Tennessee capitalized when it had chances this weekend, ran the bases well, and added a couple long balls to prevail over Kentucky.
Kentucky is far from the best team in the league, but they were coming off a series win at Mississippi and seemed like the Wildcats were starting to play their best baseball of the season.
The sweep pulls Tennessee to 9-9 in the league, the first time Tennessee has been .500 this far into SEC play since 2008. The Vols sit at third place in the SEC East and are all of a sudden back in the conversation to host a regional.
2. Redmond Walsh keeps rolling — Tennessee’s redshirt-sophomore reliever has quietly been one of the Vols’ best weapons this year and that continued this weekend with two good outings.
The lefty has given up just one run in his 18 outings this season giving the Alcoa High School alum a 0.35 ERA on the season and a 0.61 ERA in conference play.
He closed the 4-2 win out on Thursday and threw the last two innings of Saturday’s win. He allowed just two baserunners in his 2.2 innings while striking out nine.
Tony Vitello doesn’t like to use labels on his bullpen, but Walsh has seemed to settle into the closer role and has been outstanding in it for Tennessee.
The combination of Schultz pumping high 90s in the eighth inning before bringing Walsh in to throw low 90s with good off-speed stuff has kept lineups off balance in conference play.
Walsh isn’t going to overpower anyone, but he knows how to pitch and has only walked four batters this season.
His progression this season has helped give Tennessee one of the nation’s best bullpens, and has allowed Crochet’s transition to a starter roll to be nearly seamless.
3. Soularie continues to prove he’s one of the SEC’s best — Al Soularie, like he often has this season, turned in the biggest at-bat of the weekend.
On Thursday night, with Tennessee trailing 2-1 in the top half of the eighth inning the Vols were desperate to generate some offense. Tennessee only had one hit since the first inning when the Vols scored their lone run of the game.
Soularie came to the plate with a runner on first and one out hoping to bring the tying run home.
The junior college transfer delivered, plus a little more. Kentucky’s Daniel Harper hung a breaking ball and Soularie launched it over the left field wall for the go-ahead home run.
It wasn’t Soularie’s only big hit of the weekend as the sophomore delivered again on Saturday. Tennessee had failed to generate offense off Kentucky’s ace Zack Thompson heading into the sixth inning. The Vols broke the tie with a RBI groundout from Andre Lipcius, but the play left runners on second and third with one-out.
Soularie helped provide some more support for the Vols’ pitching staff. The Lone Star State native drove the ball into center field for a two RBI double giving the Vols a 3-0 lead.
On the weekend, Soularie went 3-for-10 with three walks and three RBIs.
Soularie ranks near the top of the SEC in nearly every hitting category. With an average of .378, 10 homers, and 30 RBIs there cannot be a conversation of the league's best players without mentioning Soularie.
On top of that, Soularie has been phenomenal in left field making difficult plays routine and turning in a fielding percentage of .984.
Soularie has proved this season that he’s not only one of Tennessee’s best players, but one of the SEC’s best as well.
Two Questions
What does Vitello do with Neely?
It seems safe to say that Will Neely has lost his weekend starting spot after Crochet’s two solid outings, since Neely’s injury against Mississippi State.
The question now becomes what is the appropriate course for the Vols’ senior righty?
Neely has seen action in two games as a reliever, but one was in a game where the Vols’ starter only went two innings, and the other a 16-1 win.
Vitello has seemed to identify roles for his relievers. He’s going to ride with Andrew Schultz, Camden Sewell, and Walsh. Will Heflin will have a role as one of Tennessee’s two left handers, and Richard Jackson will see a batter every once in awhile with his sidearm release.
So where does that leave Neely?
Neely could become a permanent mid-week starter for the Vols, but with Linginfelter’s lack of consistency on Saturday’s I’d think Vitello likes having a long inning reliever as an option.
No matter what Vitello decides it will be interesting to see the role that the Knoxville native takes in Tennessee’s pitching staff.
Where does Ammons settle?
Justin Ammons has spent the majority of the 2019 season hitting in the leadoff spot for the Vols, but the past few weeks have seen Ammons fall into a slump and Vitello move him around in the order.
Ammons saw several games at the five hole before getting moved down to the eight spot for Saturday’s series finale.
Ammons turned in his best game of the weekend going 1-for-4 with two RBIs.
It will be interesting to see if Ammons sticks at the eight spot, moves back to the five hole, or if Vitello moves him around to some different spots.
One thing is for sure though, the Vols’ offense is significantly better when Ammons is hitting the ball well. He brings some power that this team is lacking due to Luc Lipcius injury, and spent the first month of the season with one of the league's best on-base percentage.
No matter where he settles, Tennessee will need the Memphis, Tenn. native to play a big role in the last month of the regular season.
One Prediction
Tennessee wins one in Fayetteville, but the Hogs take the series
Tennessee’s weekend series against Arkansas will pit two of the SEC’s hottest teams against one another.
The Vols have won five of their last six conference games and are playing as good of baseball as they have in a long time. Arkansas isn’t playing too shabby either as the Razorbacks have won four straight in league play including sweeping No. 2 Mississippi State last weekend.
The series will see Tony Vitello face off against his former boss Dave Van Horn. It will be Vitello’s first trip back to Fayetteville, where he spent four years as an assistant before taking the Tennessee job.
Arkansas is 12-6 in SEC play and will likely be ranked in the top five ahead of the weekend. The Razorbacks are right in the thick of the SEC championship race and certainly won’t be short on confidence.
Tennessee won’t either though and while Arkansas is a formidable foe Tennessee always has a great chance to win with Crochet and Stallings on the mound.
I think Arkansas is the better team and it will show this weekend, but I don’t see this Tennessee team getting swept.
