Tennessee baseball showed little life falling to Auburn 8-1 in its series finale against the Tigers at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on Sunday afternoon in Knoxville.
The Vols were unable to scrap many offensive threats together while two bad innings on the mound doomed Tennessee’s efforts. Here’s how it went down in the series finale.
Midweek Arm Shuts Tennessee Down
Auburn starter Christian Chatterton has been a midweek pitcher this season, allowing nine earned runs in three previous innings pitched in SEC play this season.
But Chatterton shut Tennessee down with three scoreless innings to open up game three. The Vols totaled two hits off of Chatterton in the first inning with a 4-3 double play on a hit-and-run erasing one of those runners.
After that, Chatterton cruised over the next two innings not allowing any Vol batters to reach base. The right-handed pitcher allowed no runs and just two hits in three innings, shutting down Tennessee’s momentum from game two of the weekend series.
A Better AJ Russell Outing Has A Sour Ending
Tennessee’s AJ Russell undoubtedly looked much better than he did last week at LSU when he was constantly working around trouble with 1.2 innings pitched. But his final line looked worse than it did a week ago.
The tall right-hander retired six of seven batters he faced in the first two innings, striking out three of them. But the third inning quickly went awry for Russell with some tough luck mixed in. Russell got ahead of Chase Fralick 1-2 before the left beat the shift with a grounder at third base. Then Eric Snow softly flared a single to centerfield. Leadoff man Chris Rembert ended Russell’s day with a hard hit single through the left side.
Nate Snead came in to relieve Russell and couldn’t do anything to pick him up. A wild pitch, single and groundout drove in all three runs Russell left on base. That gave Russell a bad final stat line despite what seemed like a solid outing.
Russell’s fastball was sitting a 95 mph, multiple ticks above where it was last weekend, and he had much better control of his off-speed stuff.
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Another Rough Outing For Nate Snead
Snead is Tony Vitello’s most trusted bullpen arm which is why he goes to him in big spots. But Snead has struggled as of late in those instances. He allowed an inherited run to score in the ninth inning of game two Saturday night and let all three inherited runs score in the third inning.
The right hander allowed one of his own runs to score in the third inning as well and after a 1-2-3 fourth inning, Snead’s day came to a close after back-to-back singles to leadoff the fifth.
In his last four SEC outings, Snead has allowed 11 runs and five earned runs in 8.1 innings pitched while also allowing some inherited runs to score. Snead was a top bullpen arm in a national championship team. He has earned trust. Tennessee just needs him to be better.
Box Score
Up Next
Tennessee baseball returns to Lindsey Nelson Stadium on Tuesday night when they’ll face Indiana State in its penultimate midweek game of the season at 6 p.m. ET. The Vols will then face Vanderbilt next weekend at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
