COLUMN: How Concerning are Kentucky Baseball’s Midweek Struggles?

On Tuesday, Kentucky baseball suffered another midweek loss after a fifth inning collapse in Bowling Green versus Western Kentucky.

While the Hilltoppers are a solid squad, the loss marked its fourth midweek contest of the season and fifth game against non-power conference opposition.

So far this season, Kentucky baseball dropped one each in weekend series versus Lipscomb and Wofford and fell in midweek contests against Murray State, Xavier, Western Kentucky and Louisville. It’s also worth noting that the Bat Cats struggled in a midweek showing versus Miami (OH).

With Kentucky having seen an immense growth in stock in recent weeks after series victories over South Carolina and Tennessee, the question becomes simple: Should these midweek whiffs be cause for concern for UK?

The Problem

Kentucky baseball has been a mixed bag this season one year after making it to Omaha for the Men’s College World Series for the first time in program history.

After losing tons of talent to the MLB Draft and losing further pieces to Georgia both on the roster and coaching staff, Kentucky has struggled to truly put together momentum, with the win over South Carolina being the first time this season UK won back-to-back SEC series in what is, admittedly, a loaded conference.

One of the main reasons for this has been play on the mound.

The Wildcats have had plenty of questions on the mound this season both with starters and relievers and that was on full display in Bowling Green on Tuesday.

Going into the bottom of the fifth inning up 3-0, Kentucky imploded, allowing all four WKU runs in the bottom of the frame.

This collapse ended the day for starter Ethan Walker, who finished the day with four earned runs in 4.1 innings of play.

Things continued in the sixth as Walker’s reliever, Evan Byers, came out of the game for Scott Rouse, who then allowed two further earned runs. Kentucky would score once in the ninth but would fall 6-4.

The result echoed what took place weeks prior against Xavier, when five fourth-and-fifth inning runs allowed all but ensured a 9-3 loss to the Musketeers as Nate Harris finished that game with five earned runs.

Sure, three ninth-inning runs made the game completely out of reach, but those five runs midway through sealed the result with Kentucky’s bats not responding.

It was also similar to a loss to Murray State in which the Racers scored four of their five runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings as Harris was once again charged for four of them.

In the 4-3 victory over Miami (OH), the RedHawks scored all three of their runs in the sixth inning, all of which were charged to freshman Leighton Harris.

All in all, the play on the mound in the midweek has been extremely inconsistent and that has caused some brutal losses to clutter up a Kentucky resume that is otherwise mostly sturdy as a projected No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Sure, Western Kentucky is a bubble team as an at-large candidate, but Murray State, Miami (OH) and Xavier certainly aren’t and the problems have stayed the same.

Nonetheless, while a concern that should continue to be monitored in UK’s final midweek contest against Northern Kentucky, last year’s NCAA Tournament put on display that, weirdly enough, midweek losses don’t much matter.

Insert the Florida Gators.

Can Kentucky be the Next Florida?

In 2024, Florida was one of the most confusing teams in college baseball.

Coming into the season as a highly-touted squad, Florida racked up massive weekend series wins but struggled immensely in midweek showdowns.

By the end of the season, Florida dropped games against Stetson, UCF, Florida State (thrice) and Jacksonville. All in the midweek.

In fact, in March, Florida won a weekend series against St. Mary’s, No. 4 Texas A&M, No. 5 LSU and No. 21 Mississippi State all while losing every single midweek game in that stretch.

How did the rest of that campaign go for the Gators, once may ask?

The Gators won their Regional, hosted by Oklahoma State, besting Nebraska and the Cowboys twice each and swept Clemson in its own Super Regional to advance to the Men’s College World Series in Omaha.

In Omaha, Florida fell to Texas A&M before eliminating NC State and Kentucky. A rematch with the Aggies would end Florida’s season just outside of the World Series Championship, which would be won by Tennessee.

The point in all of this?

Midweeks don’t much matter, what teams do in their weekend series do.

Kentucky still has dates with Mississippi State, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, the latter two being firmly in the NCAA Tournament field with the Commodores set to host a Regional, and can easily lock itself in as a serious threat come postseason.

The Wildcats are still projected to be a No. 2 seed by most major predictive sites and wins over Vanderbilt and Oklahoma — assuming UK doesn’t do further damage to its resume against NKU or Mississippi State — could even possibly see it sneak in as a lower-ranked Regional host.

On top of that, if WKU is able to do enough to get itself back into the NCAA Tournament field (and a win over Kentucky will help) that loss won’t hurt the Wildcats much anyway. The loss versus Louisville, especially with UK’s redemption weeks later, won’t either.

Kentucky still has plenty to figure out if it hopes to make a splash in the postseason again and even try to reclaim a bit of the magic of last season, but as far as things go in midweek games, a loss to WKU is hardly anything to sound the alarm over.