Tennessee baseball is mixing up its weekend pitching rotation ahead of this weekend’s series against Kentucky. The Vols will use the same starting pitchers they have for the vast majority of the season with head coach Josh Elander giving the ball to Landon Mack, Tegan Kuhns and Evan Blanco.
But Tennessee is mixing up the order. Right-handed pitcher Tegan Kuhns will start in the series opener Friday night, left-handed pitcher Evan Blanco will start in game two and right-handed pitcher Landon Mack will start in Sunday’s series finale.
Elander shared the news on Sports Talk 991 with John Wilkerson and Vince Ferrara Thursday morning.
The move stems from Mack’s struggles in recent outings. Tennessee moved Mack to the Friday night spot four weeks ago and he turned in a strong outing against LSU in his first start in the spot.
But things have since gone sideways for Mack with the Rutgers transfer posting an 8.48 ERA in 11.2 innings pitched over the last three series. He turned in his worst start of the season against Alabama last week, allowing five earned runs in 2.1 innings pitched.
Kuhns started on Friday the first six weekends of the season for Tennessee before moving to the bullpen for the Vanderbilt series and back to the weekend rotation on Saturday the next week against LSU.
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Since moving to the bullpen and then back to the weekend rotation, Kuhns has posted a 1.52 ERA in his five appearances. That includes an eight inning, complete game shutout last week against Alabama.
Tennessee is just 2-5 in series openers in SEC play this season and Elander has made a point about the Vols’ need to be better to begin series. Moving Kuhns back into the Friday night spot is a step to being better in series openers.
Blanco has started on Sunday for Tennessee every weekend so far this season. The left-handed pitcher has been a consistent force for Tennessee this season, posting a 4.35 ERA and 1.11 WHIP in 41.1 innings pitched in SEC play.
The Virginia transfer turned in a bad start against Vanderbilt, but he’s allowed three or less runs in 5.2 or more innings pitched in his six other SEC starts.
Tennessee enters this weekend’s series against Kentucky with a 10-11 SEC record. First pitch for the weekend series is at 6:30 p.m. ET at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington. The SEC Network+ is streaming the game.
