Nightmare scenarios come in all shapes and sizes.
In its Thursday night defeat to rival Alabama, Tennessee baseball’s evening played out in a way that tends to sting most painfully. The Vols’ fifth series-opening loss of the season came at the hands of their own blunders. This time around, it was Tennessee’s pitching woes that presented one dire situation after another.
For starters, Crimson Tide hitters found their way on base on 16 different occasions without a hit. Tennessee pitching walked 10 of them and plunked the other six, giftwrapping Alabama with pristine scoring opportunities in nearly every inning. The horrors never stopped.
“That’s just painful, just to sit there,” head coach Josh Elander said. “I mean, over 20 free 90s, 10 walks, 6 hit-by-pitches. We talk about those guys all the time. We just want them to compete over the plate. I’d rather see four guys hit four home runs in a row than watch what we did.”
Their double-digit free passes marked a season high for Vols hurlers, and their six hit-batters tied the single-game mark. Perhaps starter Landon Mack’s rocky first inning of work set the tone for a wild outing from the rest of the staff. The right-hander yielded a trio of bases on balls out of the gate, avoiding any real immediate damage on the scoreboard despite his control fits.
The Rutgers transfer walked just 17 men in 80.1 innings during his freshman season with the Scarlet Knights. Through 55.2 innings with Tennessee, the Columbus, New Jersey, native has walked 23.
Mack’s discomfort with the Alabama lineup ratcheted up in the second inning, a stanza that looked like he might cruise through after picking up a quick two outs. After Crimson Tide leadoff man Justin Lebron beat out an infield hit, the mood shifted. The speedy shortstop stole third before forcing a Mack balk, the first boulder of what would become an avalanche on the sophomore.
“I think he was sped up today,” Elander said. “There’s absolutely no doubt about it.
“Just a really weird deal. We’re three-quarters of the way through the league, you want some consistency there. That’s something we talk about all the time. For whatever reason, he was not in a good spot out of the gates, and on a Friday night, you need length from your starter.”
While the Vols have shown flashes of consistency throughout their weekend rotation, the bullpen continues to be a liability. Freshman stalwart Cam Appenzeller was tasked with handling a bulk relief role after Mack exited after only 2.1 innings. Still, even the standout southpaw found it difficult to wrangle the Alabama nine. Appenzeller yielded four earned runs while walking three.
In all, Tennessee needed to burn through seven arms to get things to the finish line. No staff wants to throw over 200 pitches in the first contest of a three-game set. Now, the Vols stare down the barrel of a series-deciding Friday doubleheader where they will need to win both games to emerge on the right side of the weekend.
“I would just expect us to come out with a little more fire,” Garrett Wright said. “Everybody’s got to have a little fire under them. I know what we’re capable of, and we’ve all seen what the Vol baseball brand is, and I would just expect that for tomorrow.”
