Tennessee baseball is mixing up its starting pitching rotation entering this weekend’s Chapel Hill Regional. Left-handed pitcher Evan Blanco will start in Friday’s regional opener against East Carolina.
“We’re going to go with Evan Blanco game one, and everybody will be available for every game, but Blanco will lead us out of the game,” Tennessee head coach Josh Elander said Wednesday.
While Elander did not explicitly say so, the Vols will likely save ace Tegan Kuhns for the second game of the regional whether that be against North Carolina or VCU. Kuhns ended the regular season as Tennessee’s Friday night starter while earning SEC Pitcher of the Week honors twice in the final month of the regular season.
Why did Elander and his staff decide to roll with Blanco in game one over Kuhns?
“There’s a lot of things that went into it,” Elander said. “It’s something we deliberated, but I think you go back to when we recruited Evan Blanco and the recruiting process, a big thing was the maturity and the strike throwing, but also, two, he’s pitched in the College World Series, he’s pitched in the postseason.”
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Blanco has the most postseason experience of anyone in Tennessee’s pitching staff. The left-handed pitcher was the ace on Virginia’s 2024 team that made it to Omaha. Despite being a sophomore, Kuhns did not pitch during the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
Saving Kuhns’ for game two is a gamble with high-end upside. Blanco is plenty capable of pitching well against an unimposing East Carolina offense while Kuhns’ high-end talent gives Tennessee the best chance against No. 5 overall seed North Carolina.
But the move is also a gamble. Blanco has allowed three-plus runs in the first inning of his last three starts. Blanco settled in and turned in solid starts against Texas and Oklahoma, but the Vols need to avoid a slow start while facing ECU ace Ryan Towers.
“We’ll have a system to make sure he’s in a good spot, where he’s not throwing basically spit balls at the batters that are hanging up in the middle, but again, he’ll make adjustments,” Elander said. “That’s what he does. He’s going to compete. … I’m just excited to watch him compete. I know he’ll be ready.”
First pitch between Tennessee and East Carolina is at noon ET on Friday afternoon. Mike Monaco and Ben McDonald are on the call for ESPNU.
