The Baseball 3-2-1
KNOXVILLE — No. 1 Tennessee bounced back from its first series loss of the season with a series win over Georgia this weekend. In the process, the Vols claimed their first SEC regular-season title since 1995.
We look back at the series win and look ahead in the baseball 3-2-1.
THREE OBSERVATIONS
Tennessee wins the SEC regular-season title
Tennessee won its fourth ever SEC regular-season title over the weekend and its first in 27 years. It's the first set of Vols to do so since the 1994 and 1995 Vols did so in back-to-back seasons.
"At the end of the 30 games, there's five or six little things you'd like to check and if you can somehow get to co-, or outright, you've checked almost all of them," Tony Vitello said. "We've checked a lot of boxes.
"The number I like better is we won each series here for the first time since there's been five home series. And I say we, as in Vol Nation. They're here every series. I'm really proud of that. It's a group of effort."
Winning the SEC is significant. It’s the best baseball conference in the country and the Vols dominated their competition near flawlessly.
The team itself, however, isn’t celebrating the accomplishment too much as it eyes a National Championship.
“It just shows that there are a lot of guys that are determined to do some really good things,” Evan Russell said. “The SEC, that is pretty awesome. It is nothing to ignore. It is a big accomplishment and something we wanted to do.
“The vibe in the locker room is basically we can celebrate after the season is completely over. No matter what happens, no matter what we accomplish, good or bad, I think we can save the celebrations for when it is all over. If you celebrate too early, what could happen is usually not good.”
"That's the internal struggle," Lipcius added. "You want to be really excited for how we've been doing, but it's almost like you can't look to the past. You have to keep looking to the future. You congratulate yourself and you get excited for the wins and the accolades, but if you harp on them and obsess over them, that's when you start losing your edge, and that's when you start losing games."
New-look pitching staff
Tennessee rolled with a different pitching staff than it had all season against Georgia.
Chase Dollander started game one, Blade Tidwell started game two and Ben Joyce made his first career start in the series finale. Left out of the weekend rotation as a result were freshmen Chase Burns and Drew Beam.
“They're freshmen, and they (Burns and Beam) could have thrown this weekend,” Vitello said. “But I’d prefer to not ask them to shoulder the load for every week of the season. It might be different if they had a different high school career, but all these kids are still going through — they're a part of what will be in history books for a long time of a lost spring or summer (due to COVID-19).
“But even without that, just would like to manage the whole thing. So wherever we're at when we hand these guys the ball the last time this particular season, they're able to run through the finish line, as opposed to stumble.”
It was the first time all season in which Burns or Beam didn’t start during a weekend series.
Burns came out of the bullpen following Dollander’s dominant start in game one, pitching 1.2 innings and allowing one run on two hits. The right-hander didn’t give up any walks and struck out three.
Beam came out of the bullpen on Saturday and struggled, only lasting a third of an inning. In a tie game, he allowed three consecutive singles with one out, all of which came around to score.
“It’s not as if we're conceding anything at all,” Vitello said after game one. “I think the best thing for us to do this particular weekend is to throw our two most fresh guys (Dollander and Tidwell).
“You (media) guys kept bringing up — ‘Oh, you got this big problem that's coming around the bend. Well, this is the first weekend we've had four healthy guys that are the guys you all have talked about. And next week, it’ll take care of itself, because we go to Hoover after, so there's four starts. They’ll each get one; which day it is, I don't know. But, we liked our plan going into this weekend.”
Blake Burke takes advantage
True freshman Blake Burke started at designated hitter in game one and quickly took advantage of the opportunity. Burke hit two home runs in the Vols’ 5-2 series-opening win, his first ever multi-hit conference game.
The California native followed it up with his second ever multi-hit conference game in Tennessee’s 9-2 game two win. He went on to lead the Vols in hitting for the weekend with a .625 average, tallying five hits.
Burke totaled six hits on the week to earn SEC Co-Freshman of the Week honors. He’s now hit nine home runs in 58 at-bats this season, and four home runs in 20 at-bats during SEC play.
TWO QUESTIONS
Will Jordan Beck break out of his slump?
Jordan Beck has one hit over the last two weekends. Beck was 1-for-12 against Kentucky in Lexington, and then followed it up with a 1-for-10 performance against Georgia.
How concerned should the Vols be? Not too much.
Obviously there’s always somewhat of a concern when a hitter goes 2-for-22 over two weekends of play, especially when it’s the team’s three-hole hitter. But it’s not as if Beck is just completely lost at the plate.
It’s been more about unfortunate luck that is part of the game of baseball. There have multiple well-hit balls from Beck over the last two weekends and he’s consistently battling during his plate appearances.
Beck is going to be perfectly fine. The last two weekends were more about the humbling sport he plays than himself.
Could Ben Joyce continue to start?
He absolutely could. His head coach certainly thinks so.
“I’m not telling (scouts) how to do their job, but I think if you draft the guy, you might as well give him a chance to start,” Vitello said. “I think he's capable of doing that. We've only had him on the mound for a short amount of time. And I think he can go a long time for us.”
Joyce threw 67 pitches over 4.0 innings of work against Georgia and dominated the Bulldogs for three innings before running into trouble in the fourth, giving up three runs on back-to-back home runs.
For his outing, Joyce allowed three runs on two walks and three hits while striking out six.
“I think he's shown that he can throw long relief,” Vitello said. “He's also come in and got us out of a couple jams where we — almost steered him away from those early on. Now he’s a well-rounded pitcher there.
“We went to Pepperdine one year I was coaching, and we needed five different starters that particular year. And same thing when we played last year at Hoover.”
Joyce starting was more about getting Burns and Beam rest, but Joyce will most certainly be an option to start games moving forward. Especially when you get into postseason play and need more than just three starters.
ONE PREDICTION
Blade Tidwell breaks out
Blade Tidwell is on the verge of looking like Blade Tidwell.
As he continues to work his way back from a shoulder injury that caused him to miss the first month and a half of the season, Tidwell pitched 4.0 innings in his start against Georgia and only allowed one run. He did give up three walks and four hits, but struck out six to limit the damage.
“I thought Blade made progress,” Vitello said. “After you look at it, and you watch the videos, there's some progress that Blade made, so it was good to get him out there. Because he's kind of been a blended guy for us, he can be trusted as a starter and reliever, too.”
Vitello admitted that Tidwell could throw 100 pitches in an outing if the Vols needed him to, alluding to the fact that he’s no longer building back up from his injury. Rather, he’s knocking off the rust from being sidelined for half of the season.
If his latest outing was indication, there’s not much more rust to knock off.