By Logan Starkey
The start of the season hasn’t been pretty for No. 22 Tennessee baseball. That only continued against Missouri Friday night.
At face value, 15-7 doesn’t seem all that bad. Take a closer look at the losses.
A series loss to Kent State. Dominated by UCLA. A shutout loss to Wright State. A series loss to Georgia. Now, a loss to a Missouri team picked to finish dead last in the SEC.
Missouri dominated Tennessee ace Teagan Kuhns. He escaped the first two innings with light wounds, but exited the third inning shell-shocked. He allowed a base runner in all four innings. In the third, Missouri hit one off the right-center wall for their first run. The very next batter demolished one over the right field wall. Tennessee never recovered.
“Just [Kuhns] wasn’t crisp, I thought the pace was really different tonight,” said head coach Josh Elander. “Command kind of faltered a bit. Not the Teagan we’re used to seeing.”
Replacements weren’t much better. Brady Frederick allowed two runs in the fifth. Brandon Arvidson allowed three in the seventh.
Both sides of the game were an issue. The Vols had bases loaded in the bottom of the third with a chance to soften the blow of Missouri’s big half inning just before. They got nothing. Ultimately, they scored four runs. They’d dug themselves in such a big hole that it didn’t matter.
Tennessee isn’t a bad baseball team. In fact, they’re extremely talented. It just seems that they can never play a complete game. Kent State is a great mid-major program. Tennessee should have swept them. However, in those losses, Tennessee had a redeeming quality. In the first loss to Kent State, the pitchers were dealing. In the second loss, the bats recorded five runs.
There was no such redeeming quality about this game. Kuhns was bad. The bats were bad. The bullpen was bad.
One may look at the box score and believe Tennessee’s bats were good. They had nine hits, but five came after Missouri tallied its fifth run. A mark Tennessee never reached. 11 runners were stranded, including three in the ninth with the tying run at the plate. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t hit; they just didn’t hit when it could’ve actually affected the outcome of this game.
“Execution [we need it]. Period,” Elander said. “At this point in the year, you either get it done or you don’t.”
Tennessee has to be better. It was a whirlwind of an offseason, but there was still an expectation for Tennessee to compete at a high level. They haven’t done that this season.
It’s still early enough in the season, but it needs to happen now for Tennessee to be a threat in the postseason, or make the postseason at all.