The Baseball 3-2-1
LEXINGTON — No. 1 Tennessee traveled to Lexington over the weekend and lost two out of three games to Kentucky. The Cats handed the Vols their first series loss of the season and their first series loss on the road for the first time since 2019.
We look back at the long weekend in Lexington and look ahead in the baseball 3-2-1.
Vols repeat as SEC East Champs
Tennessee was crowned SEC East Champions on Sunday afternoon when Vanderbilt knocked off Georgia in Athens 4-0. With six conference games remaining, the Vols are seven games ahead of the Bulldogs who currently sit in second place.
The Vols would have liked to have done it on their own terms by sweeping Kentucky, but securing the SEC East title over the weekend still points to their success this season.
It didn’t win the SEC East because Vanderbilt took two of three from Georgia. Tennessee won the East because it swept four of its five division opponents to this point — South Carolina at home, Vanderbilt on the road, Missouri at home, and Florida on the road.
Tennessee has now won the SEC East in back-to-back seasons for the first time since it did so in 1994 and 1995.
The win also guaranteed a top-two seed in the SEC Tournament coming up in two weeks. Tennessee is on the cusp of securing an SEC regular season championship and the top-seed as it’s four games ahead of Arkansas with six to play.
Tennessee hosts Georgia this weekend, before traveling to Starkville to finish the regular season against Mississippi State. Arkansas finishes with a home series against Vanderbilt and a trip to Alabama. UT needs just three wins, or three Razorback losses, to win the SEC.
As it stands today, the Vols would play at 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 25 against the 8-seed or 9-seed.
Tennessee struggles in Lexington
Tennessee couldn’t clinch the SEC East on its own terms because of its struggles in Lexington over the weekend.
The Vols fell 3-2 in extra innings in game one and 5-2 in game two to lose their first series of the season and their first SEC road series since 2019. They were able to avoid being swept with a 7-2 win on Saturday.
UT’s bats were the biggest issue over the weekend. While the pitching staff performed well enough to win, the offense hit .188 at the plate over the three games. Only two Vols — Jorel Ortega (.333) and Seth Stephenson (.286) — hit over .250.
Six of Tennessee’s nine regular starters hit .230 or worse. Cortland Lawson (.222) was the only one of the six to hit better than .200, as Trey Lipscomb hit .182, Luc Lipcius hit .167, Christian Moore hit .143, Evan Russell hit .100 and Jordan Beck hit .083.
Dollander dominates
Chase Dollander returned from a 17-day absence due to injury last Tuesday against Alabama A&M and faced three hitters in his return, only throwing nine pitches.
In his second outing, Dollander relieved Blade Tidwell in game two against Kentucky and proceeded to dominate the Cats for 4.0 innings on 52 pitches, 44 of which were strikes.
Dollander didn’t allow an earned run, only gave up two hits, didn’t walk a batter and struck out five.
TWO QUESTIONS
How concerning was the offense’s performance?
It’s fair to be concerned about Tennessee’s offense after this weekend. It also would be smart to take the trip to Lexington with a grain of salt.
The Vols looked miserable at the plate, particularly in game one and game two, but it was in the midst of miserable circumstances. It was raining, it was cold, there was no atmosphere as few fans were in attendance, there were weather delays, game two was suspended, so on and so forth.
Sure, Tennessee needed to handle the circumstances better. The struggles at the plate, however, seemed more of a product of the weekend’s conditions than it did a sign of continued struggles to come.
Only time will tell as UT now welcomes a Georgia team with a pretty good pitching staff to town.
What does the rotation look like this week?
It seems like the week has arrived in which Tony Vitello finally has to make a decision on who is going to be left out of the pitching rotation.
Dollander is back and looked as good as ever, finally presenting Vitello and the Vols with four available starting pitchers for three weekend spots against the Bulldogs this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Yet, there’s still no obvious answer.
Dollander is nearly a lock to be back in the starting rotation, particularly with how he looked against Kentucky. Vitello said so himself following the series.
That leaves Chase Burns, Blade Tidwell and Drew Beam vying for the last two spots. Tidwell struggled for a second straight week, allowing three runs on four hits in just 3.0 innings against the Cats.
Burns lasted four innings, allowing two runs on six hits. Beam also allowed six hits, but limited the damage to just one earned run.
Could Vitello and Frank Anderson try to give Burns or Beam, two freshman arms, a break before postseason play begins? Could they go away from Tidwell as a result of command issues during his last two outings?
Booting Tidwell seems like the unlikely result as he is still working back from injury, but it’s a question that I don’t believe the Vols even know the answer to at the beginning of the second-to-last week of the regular season.
ONE PREDICTION
Vols bounce back
Georgia lost two of three to Vanderbilt this weekend and fell out of the top 25 as a result.
Still, the Bulldogs are a talented team that has the potential to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. They certainly have the potential to give the Vols trouble this weekend inside of Lindsey Nelson if the same Vols team that showed up in Lexington shows back up.
Ultimately it’s hard to believe that the Vols won’t bounce back. There were plenty of weird circumstances in Lexington that they won’t have to deal with this weekend in Knoxville.