After Tennessee’s second loss to Georgia on Saturday, Tennessee coach Dave Serrano said his team had “hit rock bottom.”
Considering what transpired on the diamond on Sunday, one could argue his statement arrived one day too early.
Georgia (15-9, 3-3) started the game with two leadoff home runs in the first two innings and never looked back, completing a three-game weekend sweep of Tennessee (9-11, 1-4) with a 10-4 victory Sunday afternoon at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Georgia was the first team to sweep Tennessee since South Carolina accomplished the feat in March 2014 and was first squad since the 2013 Ole Miss group to sweep the Vols at home.
“When the negative things happen, you got to fight through them,” Serrano said. “I think that translates to what is going on with this team too right now. When the negative things are happening, we are not getting a stop to it and that’s why we are 9-11 right now. And a team that is scuffling and a team that is searching for answers.”
If the final inning was what plagued Tennessee in its Saturday loss to Georgia, the first three innings doomed the Vols in their Sunday game against Georgia.
After Stephen Wrenn and Skyler Weber blasted solo home runs to right field, a host of Vols’ miscues in the infield allowed Georgia to score four runs in the third-none of which were earned.
The disastrous third inning prompted a visit from Serrano to the mound. On the mound, he delivered a message to the team.
That message? To Rebound from the disastrous start.
“(My message to the team was) that we were going to win the game,” Serrano said. “That if we had complete belief in one another, that it might be the best thing that’s ever happened to this team was to comeback from a 6-0 deficit and win the game.”
The Vols didn’t win the game, but the visit did produce the lone bright spot for the Vols-Hunter Martin’s performance on the mound, who came in to relieve starting pitcher Kyle Serrano in the third.
Martin retired 12 straight batters from the fourth to the seventh and only allowed two hits in 4 1/3 innings pitched.
“Today was the best I felt, I would say, since the fall,” Martin said. “I was confident out there for the first time in awhile and really just carried that. I tried to keep the team up a little bit as much as I could.
“My fastball (clicked) today. That is one thing I haven’t had all year and today I really had it and I was trusting that. I was getting a lot of swing and misses on it and a lot of ground balls with it.”
However, Martin’s fastballs couldn’t negate Tennessee’s blunders and poor hitting. The Vols committed three errors, and a passed ball in the third and a wild pitch in the seventh allowed catcher Zack Bowers to steal home twice.
Yet, the mistakes didn’t just reside on the defense, a sacrifice bunt that hung in the air a little too long turned into double play and Georgia starter Sean Mclaughlin (2-1) picked off Nathaniel Maggio on second base to kill a scoring threat in the second inning.
“You can’t scratch (the mistakes) out,” Serrano said. “They are reality. We continue to work on those things, continue to make it an emphasis. It’s almost like the pink elephant in the room, it’s almost like we are emphasizing that so much in practice that I wonder if it’s becoming a mental thing now.
“I am not pointing a finger at the kids, it starts with me and I got to go back and take a look at how we are approaching each and every day at practice and each and every day of the game to prepare these guys for the best opportunity to be successful wearing this uniform.”
A season that began with so much optimism now appears to be in a downward spiral. A downward spiral so evident that Serrano felt it necessary to defend his system after the game.
“The system works, it is not broken,” Serrano said. “There is a lot of people out there that could take their shots that the system doesn’t work, I know for a fact that it works. I have been part of a lot successful programs where it has worked. And I am not going to sway from the system.”
If the Vols truly have hit rock bottom, the good news is that they have nowhere to go but up. If there is anyone who believes this team can turn the season around, it’s the team’s coach.
“I have the thumb pointed at myself,” Serrano said. “This is no one’s fault but mine, I take full responsibility for that. Those people that have doubts about us can continue to have doubts. We are going to turn this around and I have faith in these kids that I love and I am going to continue to go to with war each and every day that we are going to figure this out.”
