No. 12 Alabama Baseball Drops Game 3 And Series Against No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.—It may only be weekend number two of the SEC regular season, but the stakes do not get much higher than what they were Saturday afternoon. A rubber-match between two of the top teams in the SEC, both looking to get off to 5-1 starts in conference and win their second straight series against a ranked squad.

Again, it was a strong turnout by Alabama students and the stands blended a lot of Crimson with hints of Volunteer orange, all recognizing the stakes on a blue-skied Saturday afternoon.

“This is probably what it should be,” Alabama head coach, Rob Vaughn, said following game two last night, “going into Saturday 1-1. It will be electric here at one o’clock tomorrow, and I think our guys will be ready to rock.”

Right-hander, Bobby Alcock (3-0, 3.60 ERA) made his first start after being named SEC Pitcher of the Week, looking to follow up his seven-inning shutout gem against the Texas A&M Aggies in College Station last Sunday.

Alcock threw the first scoreless opening inning of the series for the Crimson Tide, but Tennessee was, again, able to strike first after a leadoff triple from designated hitter, Dalton Bargo, was scored off a sacrifice-fly. Three straight ensuing walks loaded the bases for the Volunteers, but Alcock got out of the jam with a flyout and strikeout to end the inning with the Tennessee lead being held to one.

The emotions of the afternoon were heightened in the top half of the third inning when Tennessee first baseman, Andrew Fischer, took long breaks between pitches which was followed by boos from the crowd. The first baseman responded by hitting a ball over the visitor’s bullpen in right-center, which led to Coach Vaughn voicing his displeasure to home plate umpire, Kevin Sweeney over a dropped third strike no-call that would have sat Fischer down.

“It was a foul tip that we didn’t think hit the dirt,” Alabama associate head coach, Jason Jackson said. “Our catcher felt like he caught it, so we’re always gonna have their back. I haven’t seen the replay, so I don’t really know exactly what happened. We felt like (William Plattner) was pretty confident.”

Vaughn left the dugout to confront Sweeney after this continued into the ensuing at bat. The heated Alabama coach was ejected which was met by a climax of roars from the crowd and led to maybe the most emotional response from Vaughn to an umpire since coming to Tuscaloosa. Those roars were immediately silenced after Dalton Bargo rocketed a second-straight solo shot on the following at bat to make it 3-0 Tennessee.

The Vaughn ejection could not wake up what was a very quiet beginning from the Crimson Tide batters. Tennessee right hander, Tegan Kuhns (2-0, 1.08 ERA) got his sixth start of the season and made it through the Alabama order without allowing a baserunner. The freshman’s previous season high for innings and pitches was 2.2 and 37, but he more than doubled both tallies, going 5.1 innings with 71 pitches and getting pulled after giving up his first hit.

“He went right at us, and he has electric stuff. There’s no denying that,” Coach Jackson said, “I thought he did a good job of pounding the strike zone, getting ahead, quick innings, and we just could never get much going off him.”

The Volunteers capitalized on this performance adding a run to their lead in the fourth and fifth inning to make it 5-0 Tennessee at the end of five.

The Crimson Tide remained scoreless, and in the seventh, the Volunteers opened up the scoring, leading off the inning with a single and three hits and two walks with two outs resulted in a four-run inning which grew the lead to a series high nine runs.

In some rare, good news for the Crimson Tide, Justin Lebron picked up his 50th RBI on the season in the bottom of the eighth to get Alabama on the board. The milestone extends his sizeable lead over the rest of the player in country, but it would not affect the outcome of this one.

The Alabama offense saved it’s most productive inning for the bottom of the ninth, as they added a run off of three straight two-out baserunners, but that would be all, as Tennessee takes the series win with a 9-2 win on Friday afternoon.

The Crimson Tide moves to 22-3 overall on the season and 4-2 in SEC play so far. Alabama will be in Huntsville at Toyota Field for their midweek game against the North Alabama Lions next Tuesday night at 6 p.m. CT.