Tennessee baseball’s offense had zero answers for Kentucky starter Nic McCay as the Wildcats evened up the weekend series with a 4-1 victory.
Here’s what went wrong for Tennessee’s offense and more notes on the low scoring affair at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Tennessee Plays Sloppy Defense Early
After a poor defensive weekend at Ole Miss, Tennessee baseball played perhaps its best defensive game of the season in its series opening win over Kentucky. But the defensive miscues plagued Tennessee again in game two starting with the first at-bat of the game when Andrew Fischer slipped allowing Tyler Bell to reach on a chopper to first.
Marcus Phillips worked out of that trouble in the first inning but the issue reared its head again in the third inning. Tyler Bell led off the inning with a doubled to right-center field and scored shortly after when Hudson Brown’s grounder up the middle got under Manny Marin’s glove for an error.
Then with two outs, Brown stole third and Dalton Bargo was unable to knock Stone Lawless’ throw down. The ball got into left field and allowed Brown to score.
Tennessee’s defense turned things around after the third inning and was really good after that. Hunter Ensley making a couple nice running catches in centerfield while Bargo and Dean Curley each made great plays in the infield. But in a game so low scoring, the early game defensive miscues proved costly.
Stolen bases were again an issue for Tennessee with Marcus Phillips on the mound but we’ll touch on that again in a moment.
Marcus Phillips Effective But Far From Perfect
Tennessee Saturday starter Marcus Phillips was coming off consecutive poor starts entering the Kentucky series and he was better albeit not great against the Wildcats.
As previously mentioned, Kentucky terrorized Tennessee on the base paths when Phillips was in the game. The Wildcats were extremely aggressive and effectively stole eight bases against Phillips. That’s been an issue for the hard throwing right hander all season because of how slow he is to the plate. But for much of the season it wasn’t a major issue because few reached base against him.
But Kentucky had baserunners on against Phillips in all five innings he pitched, totaling five hits and a season-high four walks.
So there were plenty of things that weren’t great about Phillips’ outing. However, he did a great job of limiting the damage. The two third inning runs, both unearned, were the only ones Phillips allowed. Despite getting no assistance from his offense, Phillips exited the game with Tennessee still in it.
More From RTI: Liam Doyle ‘Learning To Pitch’ And ‘Blossoming’ For Tennessee Baseball
Nic McCay Shuts Down Tennessee’s Bats
Kentucky starting Nic McCay locked down Tennessee’s lineup on Saturday, allowing no earned runs in 7.2 innings of work.
The Vols’ had a few early opportunities against McCay, putting two-on with one-out both in the first and third inning. But Tennessee didn’t do anything with it either time with Hunter Ensley flying out and Dalton Bargo striking out to end the first before Andrew Fischer and Ensley both struck out to end the third.
From there, McCay completely shut down Tennessee’s lineup retiring 16 of the next 17 batters he faced before an eighth inning fielding error ended his day. McCay finished the game allowing one unearned run on two hits and three walks while striking out 12 batters.
There was little working for Tennessee’s offense at all but that was especially true after the top three batters in the order. Curley, Kilen and Fischer combined to reach base six times. The final six spots in the lineup combined to reach base two times. Tennessee’s 15 strikeouts were a season high.
AJ Russell Makes His 2025 SEC Debut
AJ Russell made his 2025 SEC debut against Kentucky, coming In to pitch to open the seventh inning. The talented right hander retired the first five batters he faced before walking Tyler Bell with two outs in the eighth inning.
That walk ended Russell’s day. It was the only baserunner he allowed thanks to the previously mentioned strong defensive plays from Ensley and Bargo.
His velocity was relatively similar to what it’s been in his midweek outings but it did peak at 97 mph which was the fastest he’s thrown this season. He threw 27 total pitches with 17 of them being strikes.
Box Score
Up Next
Tennessee baseball is back in action on Easter Sunday when they’ll conclude the weekend series against Kentucky. First pitch is at 1 p.m. ET with the SEC Network+ streaming the game.
