Tennessee baseball: Three takeaways from Vols season-opening sweep vs. Georgia Southern
In their quest to return to the College World Series, Tennessee baseball opened up the 2022 season with a splash. The Vols swept a solid Georgia Southern Eagles team at home over the weekend, winning all three games in the series by at least seven runs and securing two shutouts.
Tony Vitello’s No. 16 ranked team only trailed for half an inning the entire weekend, falling behind 3-0 in the sixth inning of the second game. They scored victories of 9-0, 10-3 and 14-0. This is a huge leap from last year, when they also opened the season against Georgia Southern and won two games 5-3 and another in extra innings.
With their 3-0 start, the Vols will host the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles Tuesday and UNC Asheville Bulldogs Wednesday before a home series this weekend against the Iona Gaels. Georgia Southern hosts the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Tuesday before a home series against the UCF Knights this weekend. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee baseball’s sweep.
1. Power pitching was dominant.
Every pitcher outside of Drew Beam hit 98 miles per hour in the first inning over the weekend. Beam still hit 95. Vitello used 11 different pitchers over the weekend, and 10 of them gave up 0 runs. Only Chase Dollander gave up any runs, and that was at the beginning of the top of the sixth inning of the second game, when he gave up three.
Honestly, that was on Vitello. He should have pulled Dollander, who pitched a shutout with just one hit through the first five innings. Outside of that, though, no runs were allowed the whole weekend, as UT was dominant on the mound. This may be a great sign of things to come for them.
2. Offense was carried by power hitting.
Eight of Tennessee baseball’s nine runs in its first win came off four different home runs. On Saturday, they took a 5-3 lead after falling behind 3-0, but two home runs in the eighth inning, including a grand slam by Drew Gilbert, pushed the lead to 10-3.
There were no home runs Sunday, but five of the 13 runs came from four doubles and a triple. Jorel Ortega was had two home runs and a triple over the weekend. Gilbert, Terry Lipscomb, Seth Stephenson and Christian Scott all homered too. Stephenson also had two doubles.
3. Even small-ball play was superb.
It’s impossible outside of that one inning to find anything wrong with this team over the weekend. Although power carried the offense, they also played small ball to perfection. There were six attempts to steal bases by the Vols over the weekend. They succeeded every time. Stephenson stole three, which adding to his two doubles, made him the base running star.
Beyond base running, there were four runs, including three in the final game, that came off sacrifices. One was a ground-out, but the other three were sac flies. Add in the nine extra base hits, and base running and small ball play was effective when necessary too.