After a day off, Tennessee baseball is back in action in the SEC Tournament Saturday morning where they’ll face rival Vanderbilt in the tournament semifinals.
The Vols are back in the semifinals for the fourth time in five years after knocking off Alabama 15-10 and top-seeded Texas 7-5 in 12 innings on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. Vanderbilt earned the four-seed in the conference tournament and the subsequent double-bye. After knocking off Oklahoma in the quarterfinals, Vanderbilt advanced to the semifinals.
Here’s how to watch the top 25 matchup, some notes on Tennessee’s pitching staff and a quick prediction.
How to Watch: No. 21 Tennessee Baseball (43-15, 16-14 SEC) vs. No. 4 Vanderbilt (40-16, 19-11 SEC)
First pitch time: 11 a.m. ET
Announcers: PxP: Tom Hart, CC: Chris Burke and Kyle Peterson, Sideline: Kris Budden
Watch: SEC Network
What Does Tennessee’s Pitching Staff Look Like?
Tennessee has yet to announced its starting pitcher for the matchup but it will almost certainly be freshman Tegan Kuhns who has started in game three of weekend series for much of the year for the Vols. What does Tennessee’s pitching staff look like behind Kuhns?
Tanner Franklin and Austin Breedlove should both be completely fresh after not throwing in either of the Vols’ first two games in Hoover. The same could be said for Dylan Loy who threw just seven pitches in Tennessee’s win over Texas. Brayden Krenzel (15 pitches on Tuesday) should also be pretty fresh.
AJ Russell (78 pitches on Tuesday) and Brandon Arvidson (85 pitches on Wednesday) are almost certainly unavailable against the Commodores. The in between guy for Tennessee is Nate Snead (41 pitches on Wednesday). He could be available but likely not for a very long outing.
A Quick Prediction
Vanderbilt is playing as well as any team in the conference dating back to the week before the Tennessee series. Since then, the Commodores have won three games in walk off fashion and won an extremely narrow series finale against the Vols in Knoxville.
Tennessee is playing well too. The Vols’ offense has seemingly turned the corner with five straight strong SEC performances at the plate.
But Vanderbilt’s pitching staff is a bit more fresh, so give me the Commodores in a narrow matchup at the Hoover Met.
Vanderbilt 5, Tennessee 4
