Moore has five RBIs, Tennessee’s offense gets going late again and fends off Vanderbilt 7-6

Christian Moore had a three-run home run and five RBIs, while starter Drew Beam gave up five runs but put in five innings of work with five strikeouts in the Vols 7-6, series-winning victory.

Both teams’ starting pitchers, Vandy’s Carter Holton and Tennessee’s Drew Beam, had excellent starts to the game. Each thrower sat the opposing team’s lineup down in the order in the first and allowed just a single and no runs in the second. Beam was in a bit of trouble with a man on second in the second, but with two outs, Moore made a fabulous play to steal a base hit and stop a run-scoring opportunity with this play in shallow right field:

Each offense put up a run in the third — Cal Stark tripled and Christian Moore brought him home a few pitches later with a single that he beat out thanks in part to a little bobble from the shortstop.

Blake Burke singled, Billy Amick flew out, which allowed Moore to advance to second. Then Burke singled and stole second. But with two men in scoring position, Kavares Tears struck out to end the inning.

Beam gave up a one-out single followed by a four-pitch walk. He struck out the next hitter, but Vandy’s three-hole hitter RJ Austin doubled to right and scored one of the two runners on base. Beam K’d the next hitter to end the inning with the game tied at 1-1.

The Vols put another run on Holton in the T4 that all started when Dylan Dreiling reached on a throwing error to first. An out later, Dean Curley singled, which put runners on the corners with one out. Vitello put in Cannon Peebles for Reese Chapman, and Peebles worked a walk to load the bases. Stark hit a fly ball that dropped between multiple Commodore defenders and plated Dreiling.

But Moore struck out and Burke flew out to leave three Vols stranded. Tennessee took a 2-1 lead, though it definitely missed a chance to score a couple more runs with arguably its two best hitters getting a look with the bags full.

Vanderbilt answered and took its first lead of the day when Beam tossed a four-pitch walk to the leadoff hitter and surrendered a two-run home run to second baseman Camden Korzeal. Beam got a fly-ball out and two-straight strikeouts to end the frame with the Commodores ahead 3-2.

Both pitchers worked around a base runner in the fifth — Holton gave up a two-out single to Dreiling but Ensley flew out to end the top half, and Beam gave up a two-out, full-count walk but induced a fly-ball out to center to end the inning with no damage done.

Things started to really pop off in the sixth — for both teams. Vandy took out Holton for flamethrower Greysen Carter, whose fastball was sitting high-90s and hit the triple-digit mark a couple times. But Carter lasted just .1 innings as he came in and hit Curley, walked Peebles, struck out Stark on failed bunt attempt with two strikes, which struck me as a bit of an odd choice in that situation.

It didn’t matter, though, because Moore took one of those triple-digit fastballs, inside, and just powered it over the fence to the opposite field for a three-run shot.

After the dinger, Carter allowed two-straight singles to Burke and Amick, and Burke made it to third on Amick’s hit. Burke scored on a wild pitch, and Carter walked Tears before he was subbed out for Ryan Ginther. Ginther walked Dreiling to load the bases for the Vols again, but Ensley ground out into a double play to end the inning. Regardless, UT put up four runs on three hits and took a 6-3 lead.

Beam started the B6 and got an out before serving up a single and a double to consecutive batters. Kirby Connell came in for Beam, and gave up a run-scoring single two pitches later. The lead runner advanced to third when Connell tried to pick off the runner at first and nearly sailed the ball past Burke for an error. The next hitter plated a runner on a single, and Connell struck out a batter before Vitello yanked him for Aaron Combs.

Combs walked the first batter he saw to load the bases but got a full-count ground-ball out to end the inning. Vanderbilt stranded three but plated two on four hits, which cut Tennessee’s lead to 6-5.

In the seventh, a lead-off walk to Curley bit Ginther when Moore poked a two-out single into right to give the Vols some extra breathing room they would end up needing.

The eighth was zeroes for both teams — two Vols struck out in the top half as the batters went down in order, and Combs struck out one as he also faced the minimum three hitters.

The offense didn’t add anything in the ninth, but Vanderbilt didn’t go down without raising Tennessee fans’ blood pressures. Combs came back out for the ninth, but it was pretty quickly apparent Vandy was on him. He walked the leadoff batter, then surrendered a double which allowed the leadoff runner to reach third base.

The next hitter rocketed a ball that luckily went straight to Moore at second. Combs left the game for Nate Snead who gave up a fly ball to right field that allowed the runner at third to tag, score and cut the lead to just one. Snead needed just two more pitches to get a ground-ball out from Korzeal to end the game.

Beam got the win and went to 7-2 on the year. He ended up going 5.2 IP with 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB and 5 Ks. He gave up three extra-base hits, with two doubles and the home run. 63 of his 104 pitches went for strikes.

Moore ended the day 3-5 with the home run and five RBIs. On the broadcast, Chris Burke said Moore has 27 RBIs in the last 11 SEC road games, and that number might be 28, since I think Burke said it before the insurance run that ended up being the winning run in the seventh. Either way, TN’s leadoff hitter leads the team in conference-play RBIs and is tied with Dreiling for the overall team-lead. Oh, and he’s hitting .387, which also leads the team. Blake Burke went 3-5 too, and Stark finished 2-5 and rounded out the Vols who had multi-hit games.

This win sealed the series win and has UT looking to break the brooms out for tomorrow’s game that starts at 3 PM EST.