Tennessee is still in the running its second SEC baseball title in the last three seasons.
With two weeks left in the regular season and six conference games to go, the Vols have put themselves in position after winning seven-straight conference series. Some shakeups elsewhere in the league have helped, too.
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Tennessee (40-9, 17-7 SEC), which was voted the consensus No. 1 team in college baseball by the major polls, is currently sits in second place behind Kentucky, both in the Eastern Division and in the overall standings where it is tied with Arkansas.
The Vols helped themselves last week by taking two of three games from Florida, including a 16-3 thrashing in run-rule fashion in Game 3 to claim the series, but the Wildcats jumped into first place after handing the Razorbacks their first series defeat while LSU upset previously nationally ranked No. 1 Texas A&M.
Those results have made Tennessee's path a little harder. The Vols will likely need Kentucky to trip up over the next couple of weeks and will need Arkansas to do the same to give themselves some distance.
Ultimately, though Tennessee will need to extend its series win streak.
The Vols travel to Nashville this weekend to face a struggling Vanderbilt team that has lost three of its last four series, including two run-rule defeats at Georgia a week ago.
Tennessee has won two-straight series against the Commodores, both sweeps, including last season in Knoxville which proved to be a turning point for the Vols who turned a losing record in the first half of conference play into their second College World Series appearance in three years.
But Vanderbilt (33-16, 11-13) has been successful at Hawkins Field where it is 26-6 this season and has won three of four SEC series.
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"(Vanderbilt is) not afraid to involve different things with the offense. You're always going to see fancy arms and I say that in a good way. Big prospecty arms," Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said. "Some of the guys that we recruited, so that's kind of been their M.O. is big arms on the mound and athletes that are versatile out in the field and they have that very same thing this year in particular. And they've played very well at home...I just don't look at stuff that I don't want to put energy into.
"But if it's loud enough, you do hear it, and I do know that they've been very strong at home, so that's certainly a strength of their team. As is most of the SEC."
Kentucky begins its final stretch of the regular season at Florida and will host Vanderbilt next week. Arkansas plays Mississippi State and then at Texas A&M in a final series with heavy championship implications.
Depending on how the weekend plays out for those four teams, Tennessee could be the front runner heading into its own last series against South Carolina at Lindsey Nelson Stadium next week, but it starts with Vanderbilt on Friday (7 p.m. ET, SEC Network+).
"Our goal is to get as good as we can get," Vitello said. "The SEC is a party like no other, but the best way to party is to win games."
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