The Tennessee Vols started off their weekend series with Kent State with a bang. Tyler Myatt walked it off for Tennessee 4-3 on a moonshot over the batter’s eye in center field to get things going in thrilling fashion.
Unfortunately, it went downhill from there, and it really crashed and burned on Sunday in a 9-5 loss.
Evan Blanco was a bit off, but his stuff was still good enough to have Tennessee in the ballgame down 3-2 after four innings. He walked four and struck out eight.
But then, the Tennessee bullpen came in and brought a gas can to the mound. And not in a good way.
Relief pitcher Ethan Baiotto came in and put the first two on base with walks. Then, he hit a batter to load the bases with no outs recorded before getting pulled. Josh Elander turned to Nic Abraham, who plunked a batter to plate a run. Then, Kent State hit a double play ball to short, but the Vols couldn’t get it around the horn fast enough and another run scored. Catcher Stone Lawless launched a throw into center field which scored yet another run. Self-inflicted wounds had made it 6-2.
Tennessee clawed back and made it 6-5 after Blaine Brown plated a run with a sacrifice fly and a throwing error scored two more.
But Tennessee’s pen fell on its face again in the eighth inning to give the Golden Flashes some insurance. Brady Frederick had been pitching well with two goose eggs, but he allowed two two-out baserunners. Brayden Krenzel came in and plunked a hitter before throwing a pitch way off course that scored a run (the broadcast thought he got a spike caught). After a walk, Kent State’s Micah Rienst lined a single to score two more runs.
“Guys got to attack the strike zone a little bit more,” Elander said during his postgame press conference. “It was weird. Some of those guys threw the ball really, really well earlier this week or last week and earned the right to be back out there, and we really just didn’t see the same zip from those guys. It’s a long season. A lot of baseball. Hats off to Kent (State) for what they did this weekend, but this will be good because our guys can make the decision to be better, and I’m confident that they will.”
You don’t usually see Tennessee pitchers struggling that badly to throw strikes. Tennessee certainly has some young arms and new faces, but I have to wonder how much the absence of veteran pitching coach Frank Anderson will hurt this team.
Up next is Bellarmine on Tuesdsay before a clash with top-ranked UCLA on Saturday in Arlington, Texas.