Tennessee vs Kentucky: Vols looking to take care of business in LNS

Tennessee Baseball took the series in Oxford last weekend versus the Ole Miss Rebels in what turned out to be an electric atmosphere as Liam Doyle and Andrew Fischer showed out in their old stomping grounds. Sell-out crowds of Rebel fans were ready to boo like crazy when Doyle took to the mound Friday night, and whenever Fischer was up to bat. Doyle responded with a 14-strikeout performance, holding the Rebels to only 2 runs, and Fischer went 4-10 on the weekend, with a rubber match home run being the exclamation point.

However, as much as that series meant to those 2 Volunteers, the whole team looked ready to rise to the occasion. Winning a series on the road in the SEC is hard enough, but doing it versus a top-6 team is even harder. The 9th inning rally Sunday afternoon, after Tennessee had given up 5 straight runs to lose the lead, was the sign of a mature team. Hopefully, it will lead to more clutch performances in the second half of SEC play because Tennessee’s schedule will get tough after this weekend.

For now, Tennessee gets the Kentucky Wildcats for 3 games at Lindsey Nelson Stadium. Kentucky, after making the College World Series last year, has reverted to being a middle-of-the-road SEC team. Not Great, not bad, but just kind of existing. Kentucky (20-14,6-9) has only won one SEC series this season, but they havnt’t been swept yet. They were able to take games from Georgia, Auburn, Texas, and Ole Miss, which does say something.

Tennessee can’t go through the motions this weekend, but it would be highly disappointing if Tennessee doesn’t take full advantage of 3 winnable games in their building before finishing the year versus 4 really good teams. I expect Tennessee to shore up some poor defense that reared its head in Oxford, and overpower a less talented Kentucky team for a confidence-building sweep heading into the ladder stretch of the season.