Tennessee baseball sweeps Mississippi State to end regular season: Three takeaways

They had already clinched the SEC regular season championship, but that didn’t stop Tennessee baseball from dominating one last time. The Vols won all three games at the Mississippi State Bulldogs this past weekend to finish the regular season with a 49-7 record and 25-5 SEC record.

It all started with a historic outing Thursday night when UT, ranked No. 1 across the board, tied its program record for margin of victory in a game, beating MSU 27-2. Rocky Top then scored three runs in the eighth inning Friday to win 4-3, and they won 10-5 on Saturday.

MSU, the defending national champion, was knocked out of the SEC Tournament. They finish the year 26-30 and 9-21 in SEC play. As the No. 1 seed in the tournament, the Vols play at 5:30 p.m. ET Wednesday against the Ole Miss Rebels or Vanderbilt Commodores. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee baseball’s sweep.

1. Home runs powered a historic offense.

Scoring was pretty easy for most of the weekend, but home runs remained the root of it. The Vols scored 20 of their 41 runs off 11 homers. That included a two-run homer by Drew Gilbert in the eighth inning Friday to give them that 4-3 win. Thursday was obviously the story here, as the team had seven homers in that hame.

Luc Lipcius and Jorel Ortega each had two in that one. Orgeta hit another one Sunday to finish the weekend with three. Gilbert hit one Thursday as well to finish with two. Jordan Beck, Blake Burke, Trey Lipscomb and Evan Russell all had one over the weekend as well.

2. Power pitching continues to tell the story.

Drew Beam was the only starting pitcher who struggled over the weekend, as he allowed two earned runs in two innings Saturday. Chase Dollander pitched a masterpiece Thursday, striking out six and allowing no runs or hits with just one walk in six innings. Chase Burns allowed three runs in six innings Friday, but Blade Tidwell then came in and pitched a perfect final three innings.

Simply put, power pitchers carried Tennessee baseball. Tidwell struck out five, and Burns struck out six. Saturday saw Ben Joyce, Kirby Connell and Redmond Walsh pitch a combined five innings and allow no runs. Camden Sewell had a rough day, and Will Mabrey allowed a run in two innings, but overall, power pitching was solid.

3. No defensive mistakes was huge.

This didn’t matter Thursday. Neither side made a mistake, which means that yes, all 27 runs the Vols scored were earned. The same held true on Friday. UT and MSU both finished with no errors and no unearned runs allowed the first two days. That was huge Friday, though, as one mistake could have cost the Vols.

On Saturday, to finish things off, MSU committed four errors and allowed two unearned runs. That’s what helped Tennessee baseball dominate. A perfect fielding percentage over the weekend with no unearned runs allowed is a big step up from where they were earlier in the year.