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Vanderbilt catcher Colin Barczi (44) celebrates with Vanderbilt utility RJ Austin (42) after Barczi's hits his second home run of the night during a NCAA baseball game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Vanderbilt Commodores at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on May 11, 2025. Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

RJ Austin’s Leadership and Clutch Play Fueling Vanderbilt’s Late-Season Rise

Originally posted on Vanderbilt Commodores on SI
By Taylor Hodges | Last updated May 23, 2025 12:11 PM ET

Spend enough time watching sports, reading about sports, or talking about sports and plenty of coach-speak topics and cliches will fill your head.

One of those is peaking at right time. You want to be playing your best when it matters the most, which is usually in a playoff or tournament. It’s nice to be playing your best on opening day, but it doesn’t mean much if you’re not playing at that same level when games matter.

And, yes, that’s true even for the conference with the motto, “it just means more.”

It appears that Vanderbilt’s baseball team is peaking at the right time and arguably just as important, one of its best players is playing at a high-level.

⚡️ @RjAustin14 pic.twitter.com/YElJixgqso
— Vanderbilt Baseball (@VandyBoys) May 23, 2025

RJ Austin has been good all season. He’s a vacuum cleaner of a centerfielder (.985 fielding percentage) and is an elite at stealing bases (leads SEC with 22), but in the last two and a half weeks, he’s found his swing at the plate.

“I think him and the rest of the group, they've all been consistent here over the last month and a half,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said in Thursday’s press conference. “But RJ is a very competitive young man. And this time of year, you always feel like he's going to play well. He had a nice game tonight.”

+1⃣

RJ picks up his third RBI of the game. pic.twitter.com/XQjFLSh5XN
— Vanderbilt Baseball (@VandyBoys) May 23, 2025

In Thursday night’s SEC Tournament quarterfinal win against Oklahoma, Austin led the Commodores at the plate. He was 2-for-4 with three RBIs and a stolen base. He now has a six-game hitting streak and six-straight games with at least one RBI. In that same time span, he’s only struck out four times (39 before then).

“Just go up there and put a good swing on the ball, look for a good pitch,” Austin said about his approach at the plate against Oklahoma. “Try to not swing out the zone too much, and just go up there and free mind and be myself and go out there and have fun. At the end of the day, I'm competing against the pitcher one-on-one and that's what I had to do. Good thing that happened the way we wanted it to.”

Game Recognize Game@RjAustin14 @JackieBradleyJr pic.twitter.com/58BAprR3Xd
— Vanderbilt Baseball (@VandyBoys) May 23, 2025

Austin’s play is also having an effect on his teammates, who see their captain and leader (who is the one always doing the chest bump after home runs?) playing well and they start playing better.

“I can remember telling (a reporter) a couple months ago that in time this offense will start to grow,” Corbin said. “We had a lot of young players with not a lot of college at-bats. It's an old league, especially in the SEC. So, guys like Rigdon and Johnston and Holcomb, even Mancini, we just had some younger guys that have developed along the way. And their identity as an offense is starting to grow.

“I think we certainly have run more towards the end of the season. We've used the backside of the ball field well from both sides, done a better job with two strikes. I think the approaches have been cleaner. And done a nice job of separating balls and strikes at the plate. That part has been good.”

Austin, Corbin and the rest of the Commodores and their fans hope this level of play continues. Vanderbilt has Friday off and will play archrival Tennessee in Saturday’s SEC Tournament semifinal game. That game will air on SEC Network at noon.