By Jay King
HOOVER, Ala. – A deep run by the Volunteers was not necessarily expected.
After just their second game in the SEC Tournament, Tennessee is going packing from Hoover, even with the momentum of a dominant win over South Carolina the day before.
4-8 was the final score of a game where the offense played alright, but the pitching was not ideal.
“I thought there was a little bit of a lull in the middle of the game today,” said head coach Josh Elander. “I think we can do a little bit better job of that going into next week.”
Evan Blanco had a rough outing on short rest, as he only pitched for three innings, giving up seven hits and three home runs. All three of them went over 420 feet.
“I think [Blanco’s] breaking stuff was not as sharp as usual tonight,” said Elander.
The other home run given up was off of Ethan Baiotto, which also went 420+ feet. 7-of-8 of the Razorbacks’ runs were scored on those home runs.
“[Arkansas] really landed on some balls today,” said Elander. “Those were hit a long way.”
The offense did play alright with eight hits and four runs. Garrett Wright continued to swing a hot bat heading into game two, as he had another multi-hit game. Levi Clark had one as well. Blaine Brown was also solid as he had two RBIs that he got with a double.
Even the defense was alright, as Henry Ford made an amazing defensive play at third, and Garrett Wright threw out a runner perfectly.
Long story short, the whole team played alright, but it was just a down performance from the pitching.
What’s next?
The Vols were not playing with any urgency in this SEC Tournament, and they did not need to. Heading into the tourney after back-to-back series wins, the Vols were comfortably a regional two-seed, according to D1Baseball.
The two seed was what the Vols were fighting for in the last few weeks, and after a strong end to the season, that is what they got. If they were playing for anything, it was to look at playing in a more favorable matchup in regional play.
Their record and ranking would not be enough to host a regional, even if they were able to win the whole thing.
Winning the whole thing was also unrealistic with Reese Chapman and especially Landon Mack out. There just was not enough pitching depth to win it all.
Does winning the conference championship give you a better chance at winning the national championship?
The simple answer is no.
While Tennessee did win both the SEC and National Championship in 2024, that was a rare occurrence.
Seven of the last nine national champions in baseball were in the SEC. Two of those seven won the SEC Championship: 2019 Vanderbilt and 2024 Tennessee.
Being a regional two-seed may seem like it would be tough for them to make it to the College World Series, too, but that is not necessarily true. Obviously, one-seeds are more likely to make it to Omaha, but plenty of two-seeds and lower have.
In fact, 2024 was the only year since 2013 in which no regional two-seeds were in the College World Series.
In 2023, Tennessee was a regional two-seed and went on the road both times, in Clemson and Hattiesburg, to punch their ticket in Omaha.
This team looks very similar to that one in the sense that they both started the season very slowly, to the point where there were even doubts that they would even make the tournament in the first place, all the way to a two-seed.
“We’ve come a long way. I think just overall we’re taking better at-bats,” said second baseman Blake Grimmer. “Not taking the [selfish] stuff out of it and just working towards the team.”
While this loss was disappointing, it is in no way a death sentence for their season, just a learning experience from the tournament.
“I think we took a lot from these two games here, playing in SEC competition,” said Grimmer.