Tennessee baseball received bad injury news Saturday amongst its otherwise strong weekend against No. 4 Texas. The Vols scratched Landon Mack from his scheduled Sunday start due to right arm soreness.
“Dealing with some general soreness,” Elander said Saturday night. “We’ll make sure he gets the highest level of care as always. But you know, that’s a guy that’s going to pitch in the major leagues for a long time. Has really, really good stuff. We’ll wait to get all the all the details as it plays out, but he will not throw for us tomorrow.”
Mack has started on the mound in all 12 of Tennessee’s weekend series this season, posting a 4-4 record, 4.67 ERA, 1.49 WHIP in 61.2 innings pitched.
The sophomore began the season as the Vols’ Saturday starter before moving into the Friday night spot. Mack was terrific in his Friday night debut against LSU but struggled his next three times out before turning in a quality start last Sunday against Kentucky.
Elander was non-committal on how much time he expects Mack to miss as he battles arm soreness.
“Don’t want to make any guesses at this point,” Elander said. “We’ll see what doc and the rest of the crew have to say. But again, just kind of general soreness and excited to see him back out there.”
Where does Tennessee turn without Mack in its Sunday series finale against Texas? Options are slim and the Vols will have to use an abundance of arms.
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“(Tennessee pitching coach Josh Reynolds) and I will sit down and talk about it after this,” Elander said. “We had talked about a couple different options, but just with how much respect I have for Coach Schlossnagle and his program, we were leaving Appy in that game to finish it. We’ll have to mix-and-match a little bit. We just got the Mack news pregame today, so we’ll get with the rest of the crew and figure out what we got.”
Cam Appenzeller is burnt after throwing 51 pitches on Saturday night. Brandon Arvidson is likely also burnt after throwing 41 pitches on Friday night.
Bo Rhudy is Tennessee’s only consistent pitcher who has yet to pitch this weekend against Texas. However, Rhudy is a true bullpen arm and likely will not start.
Besides Rhudy, the Vols’ options are limited. Brady Frederick and Brayden Krenzel will both likely pitch but have been unreliable in SEC play. Freshmen Will Haas, Chandler Day, Ethan Baiotto and Taylor Tracey have been effective midweek pitchers who have only had limited SEC opportunities.
Sophomore Nic Abraham could be a starting candidate and has a 7.59 ERA in 10.2 innings pitched in SEC play this season.
No matter who starts, Sunday will be true bullpen game for Tennessee as they attempt to piece things together during the series finale. The good news for Tennessee is that the Vols have already clinched the weekend series after taking the first two games of the weekend series.
First pitch for Sunday’s series finale at Lindsey Nelson Stadium is at noon ET. ESPN2 is broadcasting the game.
