Tennessee dropped two out of three in Nashville this weekend to Vanderbilt, but avoided the sweep with a big win on Sunday. Let’s look back at the week and look forward to another challenging week in the Southeastern Conference.
THREE OBSERVATIONS
1. Very bad outing by Linginfelter — Tennessee RHP Zach Linginfelter struggled mightily Saturday, giving up seven runs in just 1.1 innings.
Linginfelter looked like he was throwing batting practice for Commodores hitters as he allowed eight hits and two homers.
After a fantastic start to his junior campaign, Linginfelter has struggled mightily in SEC play.
Linginfelter is now 0-3 with a 9.95 ERA in conference play, and his full season stats have dropped to 4-3 with a 3.93 ERA.
One horrible start can really skew those numbers, but Linginfelter didn’t have his best stuff at Auburn before turning in a solid outing against South Carolina.
I don’t think it’s time to hit the panic button on Linginfelter just yet, but Tennessee needs the Zach Linginfelter it had earlier this season.
He’ll face another gauntlet of an offense this weekend when Mississippi State comes to Knoxville and the Vols can’t afford to concede Saturday games or use up its bullpen before Sunday.
I don’t think Tennessee needs to be overly worried about the Sevierville native’s start to conference play, but it's something to watch going forward.
2. Big win Sunday — I wrote on Friday that Tennessee needed to avoid sweeps these next few weekends. They did that Sunday, but not without some drama.
After jumping out to leads on both Friday and Saturday but losing, it felt like Tennessee was going to face the same fate after Philip Clarke’s 3-run homer evened the game in the bottom half of the first inning.
Tennessee had answers though. They continued to work on Kumar Rocker, son of Tennessee defensive line coach Tracy Rocker, piecing together good at-bats eventually scoring seven runs on 10 hits off the freshman before he was pulled in the fourth inning.
Tennessee was going to have to score runs this weekend to keep up with Vandy's prolific offense. The Vols held Vanderbilt to one of its worst offensive performances of the season Friday but still lost.
They got those runs early Sunday, but after Vanderbilt itched closer and closer to the Vols and Tennessee couldn’t find any holes against the Commodores bullpen, it felt like Vanderbilt was going to pull off the series sweep.
That’s where Garrett Crochet came in clutch, and with the help of his defense (helping throw out the game-tying runner at home in the eighth inning), the Vols got SEC win No 3.
It’s just one win and the Vols are still 3-6 in conference play, but it felt huge for Tennessee. That’s a game I’m not sure they win the past few seasons.
3. Solid weekend for the bullpen — It will get overshadowed because the starting pitching struggled this weekend, but that was a very solid weekend of work from the Vols' bullpen.
Andrew Schultz allowed an inherited run and one of his own on Friday, but besides that, you can’t ask much more from the group.
The Vols bullpen threw 15.2 inning this weekend, by far the most of a series this season, and only gave up three earned runs.
Vitello has to be pleased with what lefties Redmond Walsh and Will Heflin gave him this weekend against the lefty-heavy Vanderbilt lineup.
Heflin threw 2.2 scoreless innings on Friday night keeping the Vols within striking distance.
Walsh threw 2.2 innings on Saturday giving up two runs, only one of which was earned, and slowed down the Commodore attack that looked like it was taking batting practice off Linginfelter.
Crochet was certainly the headline of the weekend as he held Vanderbilt scoreless the last four innings of Sunday’s game. Having a guy that you can hand the ball too and that can take you the distance is huge, and Crochet continues to show he’s that guy.
Vitello also has to be pleased other guys showed they can step up and give you good innings against an elite SEC lineup. They’ll need it again this weekend.
TWO QUESTIONS
Can the Vols starting pitching give them more next weekend?
As outlined above, it wasn’t the best weekend for Tennessee’s starting pitching. Besides Garrett Stallings, who was solid Friday night for the Vols, Tennessee didn’t get the outings it was looking for against Vanderbilt’s wagon of a lineup.
It doesn’t get much easier for the Vols this weekend as they will face Mississippi State. The Bulldogs currently lead the league in runs scored, batting average, and slugging percentage.
Tennessee needs to try to keep these games to 5-4 or 4-3 type of games if they want to pick up wins against the conference’s elite teams. It will be hard against Mississippi State, but it doesn’t feel like the Vols offense is going to be able to keep up in high scoring games.
Stallings has been solid in every single start this year, but Tennessee needs Linginfelter to be more consistent and give them quality starts.
If they can combine that with a little bit better Will Neely start on Sunday, they’ll be able to pick up a win and continue to survive until the schedule lightens up a little.
Has Vitello found the lineup he likes?
When Tennessee lost Luc Lipcius three weeks ago it seemed like Vitello would turn to Pete Derkay at first. Vitello experimented with a couple lineups, giving Max Ferguson a lot of action at second and Derkay action at first.
It seems like he’s found what he likes as he started the same lineup, besides the catchers who alternate game-by-game, in all three games this weekend.
Max Ferguson started the whole weekend at first and Jake Rucker started the whole weekend at second.
The pair of freshman were good for the Vols, as Ferguson and Rucker each went 3-for-10 on the weekend with a RBI.
It appears Vitello likes what the young guys are giving him as they seem to be becoming a staple in the lineup.
Both of them are near the bottom of the team in strikeouts as Ferguson has fanned it four times and Rucker just three times in SEC play.
After using some different guys at the designated hitter spot, it appears Vitello has settled back on Russell who has steadied after slumping badly at the beginning of conference play.
Russell provided a good stick for the Vols this weekend going 4-for-10 win a pair of RBIs.
We’ll see if he goes with the same lineup this weekend, but for now it appears Vitello has found what he’s looking for.
ONE PREDICTION
We’ll see more Elijah Pleasants going forward
It’s not hard to see what Tony Vitello and Frank Anderson liked about Elijah Pleasants when recruiting him. The Clarksville, Tennessee native is 6-foot-5 and athletic, but most believed he’d be a project who wouldn’t see much playing time this season.
There is no doubt that Pleasants is still a long way away from reaching his potential, but the right hander may be finding a roll on this team.
Before last week, Pleasants had seen occasional work this season appearing in five games. But the freshman saw work in both Tuesday’s loss to ETSU and Saturday’s loss at Vanderbilt. He was very solid in his three inning pitched, not allowing a single base runner and striking out two.
Vitello gave glowing reviews to Pleasants after both appearances, stating the he looked like a guy that was going to be a big league pitcher after a few years in a college weight room.
Vitello also said that Pleasants has deserved more opportunities whether that be a midweek start, or a higher stakes weekend opportunity.
We’ll see what Vitello decides but it appears Vol fans will be seeing more of Elijah Pleasants going forward.
