Tennessee baseball goes 2-1 at Houston tournament: Three takeaways from Vols’ weekend

Massive excitement about Tennessee baseball facing the No. 1 ranked Texas Longhorns Friday night with both teams undefeated and in the top 10 ended in a dud. The Vols lost 7-2 in their first game of the Shriners Hospital for Children College Classic at Minute Maid Park in Houston. However, they regrouped the next day and finished the weekend with two wins.

UT beat the Baylor Bears 10-5 on Saturday and closed things up with an 8-0 win over the Oklahoma Sooners Sunday. Baylor is only 6-5 but did score a top 10 win over the LSU Tigers and top 25 win over the UCLA Bruins over the weekend, so that’s a quality win for the Vols.

Meanwhile, OU fell to 5-5 while losing all three of its games at the event. Texas beat Rocky Top and LSU but did lose to UCLA, who lost to Baylor, and fell to 11-1. Anyway, the Vols are now 10-1 and faced the James Madison Dukes Tuesday and Wednesday in a midweek series. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee baseball’s 2-1 record in Houston.

1. Power was the dominant driver of the offense.

In three games over the weekend, the Vols hit five home runs. They scored seven of their 20 runs on the weekend off homers. Another seven came off doubles, which they had nine over the weekend. They also had a triple but didn’t score off that.

Evan Russell, Christian Scott, Blake Burke, Jordan Beck and Christian Moore all went deep. Lawson, Russell and Moore all also had doubles. Jared Dickey and Jorel Ortega had two doubles each. Add in a stolen base for Russell, and he was the star of the series offensively, generating a run every game, although he did allow for nine stolen bases playing catcher.

2. Mistakes and missed opportunities over one inning proved costly.

The bottom of the sixth and top of the seventh are why Tennessee baseball lost to Texas. UT had given up its lead and was trailing 2-1 in the sixth, but with one out and men on first and second, Ortega made a crucial error. He failed to field a ball hit by Murphy Stehly directly to him. That allowed a run instead of what could have been a double-play.

Then, in the top of the seventh, UT couldn’t cash in on its opportunities. A double by Lawson with two men on sent Ortega home. Down 4-2 with men on second and third on and one out, Seth Stephenson fouled out, and Luc Lipcius struck out looking. If Ortega had turned that double play and those runners in scoring position made it home, it’s a different game.

3. Starting pitching was mostly superb.

Chase Dollander had a bad first inning against Baylor, allowing four runs. However, the Vols’ three starting pitchers over the weekend allowed just one run in 12 innings outside of that. Even Dollander was able to regroup and not allow any more runs over the next two innings. Chase Burns and Drew beam each pitched five innings.

Burns allowed two hits, one walk and one run while striking out 10. Beam allowed two hits, no runs and one walk while striking out six. To be fair, outside of a bad inning by Camden Sewell, Tennessee baseball’s relievers were solid too. Redmond Walsh allowed no runs in two innings. However, the starters were more impressive and mostly set the tone.