Red-hot Tennessee baseball sweeps Missouri: Three takeaways

After dominating in back to back series in the SEC on the road against top five teams to earn a No. 1 ranking across the board, Tennessee baseball continued its red-hot streak this past weekend against the Missouri Tigers. In their first home SEC series in three weeks, UT swept Mizzou. This time, though, it was much more difficult.

The Vols trailed in the seventh on Friday and in the sixth on Saturday despite winning those games 8-3 and 11-4 respectively. They then had to hold on for a 4-3 win Sunday to improve to 31-1 and 12-0 in the SEC, a historic start, with a Tuesday matchup against the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles in Kodak, Tenn., with wooden bats up next.

Next weekend, UT will host the Alabama Crimson Tide. Mizzou falls to 18-11 and 3-9 in the SEC with a Tuesday visit from the Western Illinois Leathernecks and a weekend visit from the Kentucky Wildcats, beginning Thursday up next. Here are three things we learned from another sweep by Tennessee baseball.

1. Home runs powered an all-or-nothing offense.

Sunday described the Vols’ offense in a nutshell. They had five hits and four runs off of them. For the weekend, they scored 23 runs on 29 hits. Why? Well, they sent a lot of balls deep. UT had eight homers over the weekend. Trey Lipscomb and Evan Russell each had one Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, they and Jorel Ortega had a run of three straight homers in the second.

Jordan Beck hit a grand slam Saturday as well. Then came Sunday, and Luc Lipcius carried the offense with two homers and three RBIs. UT also had nine doubles, making 17 of their 29 hits either doubles or homers. Base running had its issues, as Christian Scott caused a double play in a line out Friday, but the power hitting made its impact minimal.

2. Bullpen made up for struggling starting pitching.

Chase Burns was pulled before the end of the third Friday after allowing two runs, and Chase Dollander was pulled before the end of the seventh Saturday after allowing four runs. Drew Beam got the win Sunday but was the only solid starter, allowing two runs in six innings. The bullpen was the story in this one.

Will Mabrey, Ben Joyce, Zander Sechrist, Camden Sewell, Mark McLaughlin, Blade Tidwell, Kirby Connell and Redmond Walsh all saw action on the mound over the weekend. They combined to allow just two runs in over 11 innings pitched.

Walsh got the save Sunday and allowed no runs in  over two innings combined Friday and Sunday. McLaughlin got the win Friday and allowed no runs in over two innings combined Friday and Saturday. Maybrey also allowed no runs in over two innings pitched combined Friday and Sunday.

3. Power pitching continues

While UT had 29 hits, Mizzou did have 28 hits over the weekend. The problem is they left a total of 24 men on base. Why? Rocky Top combined to strike out 37 hitters. Their defense was solid with only two errors and a .981 fielding percentage, but not putting balls in play with runners on is what saved them.

True, this was helped by a critical error from Trevor Austin aggressively trying for home in a dumb move Friday that resulted in him being thrown out and costing Mizzou a chance to build on their 3-1 lead at the time. However, the strikeouts were the big reason the Tigers couldn’t cash in.