The Tennessee Volunteers started off their Sunday against Auburn in terrific fashion. The ending, no so great.
Tennessee plated a run in the eleventh to walk off Auburn in the second game of the series that was postponed from Saturday night to win 5-4 and even the series. Liam Doyle came in to pitch the 10th and 11th innings, keeping Auburn off the scoreboard. He got into a jawing match with an Auburn baserunner that the Vols caught in a rundown to end the 11th and was ejected, as it turns out. Fortunately, a walk-off RBI single by pinch hitter Chris Newstrom made Doyle’s ejection not matter.
Unfortunately, that momentum from the wild celebration after the walk off did not carry over into the rubber match shortly thereafter. AJ Russell ran into trouble in the third, when the Tigers plated 4 runs through a series of dinks and dunks. Nate Snead couldn’t stem the tide in his place, with the Tigers adding on 3 more runs in the sixth to effectively end the game and the series (the game was shortened to 7 innings due to the constant weekend weather delays).
Auburn won the first game in the series 6-1, which was suspended after Auburn scored 2 runs off Doyle in the top of the first inning. Because Doyle started, he wasn’t available to start on Saturday, while Auburn’s ace was, since the game didn’t reach the bottom of the first on Friday night. A significant disadvantage that hurt ultimately hurt UT.
The Vols have now lost 3 straight home series and 4 of their last 5 overall. That’s a tough stretch after a promising first half of the season.
We’ll see if UT can pull out of that nosedive next weekend against Vandy in a critical series for the Vols.