Tennessee baseball suffered a 9-2 defeat to Kentucky Friday in Lexington at Kentucky Proud Park.
After three weeks of relative consistency at the plate, Tennessee’s bats struggled mightily against Kentucky starter Ben Cleaver, totaling just four hits and two walks.
Additionally, Tennessee starting pitcher Tegan Kuhns came back down to Earth after a month of excellence.
Moving back to the Friday night role in which he began the season, Kuhns gave up six runs in 6.0 innings after giving up three runs across 23.2 innings in four April appearances.
Here’s three takeaways from Tennessee’s 12th SEC loss of the season.
Vols Offense Suffers Setback
Tennessee tallied nine or more hits in seven of its past nine SEC contests entering the Kentucky series.
After a rough start to the season and SEC play, one could’ve argued the Vols’ offense had turned a corner.
But Friday night in chilly Lexington, the inconsistencies reared their ugly head again.
UT tallied just four hits and walked twice against Kentucky starter Ben Cleaver in 7.0 innings. It was a season-best outing for the Wildcats’ starter, as he had given up at least two runs in every SEC start and at least four runs in every start he pitched four or more innings.
Cleaver set season-highs in innings pitched (7.0) and total pitches (85), besting previous highs of 4.2 and 72.
Tennessee had multiple baserunners in an inning only once against Cleaver but never got a runner to third.
Tennessee prevented the shutout in the eighth when Henry Ford took UK reliever Oliver Boone deep to left field after Stone Lawless hit a leadoff pinch-hit single.
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Tegan Kuhns Comes Back to Earth
Tegan Kuhns was un-hittable in April, especially in the final two weeks of the month. The Vols’ sophomore entered the Kentucky series coming off of 13.2 scoreless innings across two starts.
Kuhns wasn’t the same against the Wildcats, allowing six runs in 6.0 innings.
The Gettysburg, Pennsylvania native gave up a hit in five of his six innings. After doing a good job working around traffic on the basepaths in the first and second innings, Kuhns was tagged for a two-run homer in the third.
Luke Lawrence recorded a two-out single before Ethan Hindle sent a 0-1 pitch high into the jet stream that carried it out over the right-field wall.
The Lexington wind was a factor Friday and certainly was in allowing Hindle to leave the yard and give Kentucky the game’s first lead.
Kuhns ran into trouble again in the fifth, allowing a double and single to begin the inning before a sac bunt brought a runner home.
Kuhns then plunked Hindle before Braxton Van Cleave punished a no-doubt, three-run homer to right field that put the Cats up six.
Tennessee head coach Josh Elander opted to switch up the starting rotation this weekend, moving Kuhns back to his Friday starting role, Evan Blanco up to Saturday and Landon Mack to Sunday.
Kuhns had been dynamite in his past five outings since moving out of the Friday night role, but game one in Lexington saw Kuhns look human again.
Taylor Tracey, Nic Abraham and Mark Hindy recorded the final six outs for Tennessee on the mound. Tracey allowed three unearned runs as a Manny Marin leadoff error preceded a wild pitch and two-run single off Abraham later in the frame.
Tennessee’s Struggles in Series Openers Continue
Tennessee has been an inconsistent team this season, but its struggles in series openers have been anything but.
The Vols have now lost six of their last seven series openers and six of eight in SEC play.
There’s no common theme to Tennessee’s series-opening losses. Some have come with elite starts on the mound before lackluster performances out of bullpen arms, such as LSU .
Others have come with the opposing starter shutting down the UT offense, like Friday in Lexington or earlier this season against Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.
It’s tough to win a series after dropping the first one. Tennessee is 2-3 in series in which it loses the first game.
The Vols have been better later in series recently, especially on Sundays as Tennessee is 3-0 in its past three series finales.
UT will aim to continue that success and overcome yet another series-opening loss.
Box Score
Up Next
Tennessee will look to even the series Saturday at Kentucky Proud Park. First pitch is at 2 p.m. ET on SEC Network +.
