RECAP: UT hits five dingers, run rules Ole Miss for series-clinching 15-4 win

The offense continues its 2022-like pace for home runs in season

Christian Moore hit his third home run of the series and four other Vols left the yard, while Zander Sechrist and Nate Snead combined for 7 IP in which the duo scattered 11 hits but allowed just one walk and four runs as Tennessee won the deciding game of the series against the Rebels.

The bounce-back Sunday performance was reassuring for fans after they watched the orange and white beat Alabama convincingly in game one of last week’s SEC weekend matchup and then drop both the following games to lose the opening conference series.

Sechrist cruised through the top of the first, despite allowing a single and the runner getting to second on fan error from freshman shortstop Dean Curley. The error was Curley’s team-leading sixth of the season and second since SEC play started (no other Vol has more than two errors so far this year). It came with two outs, and Sechrist stranded the Rebel in scoring position with a two-pitch flyout to the next hitter.

The offense clicked promptly with a Kavares Tears two-out, two-run home run after strikeouts from Christian Moore and Billy Amick with a Blake Burke double sandwiched in the middle. Tears took Rebel starter Grayson Saunier deep to right-center for a 430-foot blast that had a 109-MPH exit velo. And I may be seeing things, but it looks like this ball could have gone further and possibly solicited a call to a car insurance company had it not glanced off the light pole — see if you see what I saw:

The Vols’ starter allowed the one and only run of his outing in the T2 after he alternated between strikeouts and singles through the first four batters of the frame. Campbell Smithwick, the Ole Miss nine-hole man and the fifth batter of the half inning broke the alternating cycle with another single that pushed across the Rebels’ first run of the game. After the run crossed home, Smithwick got caught and called out trying to stretch the single into a double, thus ending the inning with what could have been two runners still on base.

Tennessee didn’t have a response in the B2 but made up for it in the third. After Sechrist gave up a one-out single and a subsequent walk on a 3-1 count, Tony Vitello brought in Nate Snead who got one out then surrendered a single that put two Rebels in scoring position. Though the next batter reached on a ground-ball fielder’s choice, UT got the out at second and ended the top half with Ole Miss stranding three runners one base.

The bats plated five runs in the B3 after Curley hit a leadoff single and Christian Moore brought him home with Moore’s 10th homer of the year. Moore’s been hot with the bat lately and this long ball tied him with Billy Amick for the team lead. The Vols second baseman has just one hitless conference game and leads the team with four dingers in SEC play.

Moore showed off the opposite field power, while making use of the short porch in right, by sending this pitch that was trending low but caught too much of the plate. Christian golfed it into a 37.5-degree launch angle shot that traveled 345 feet and had a 94-MPH exit velocity:

Burke hit a foul ball that became the Vols’ first out, but Billy Amick followed with a full-count walk, and Tears singled to push Amick into scoring position. Dylan Dreiling reminded us that scoring position doesn’t matter when the ball leaves the park with his eighth home run of the year. Another off-speed pitch from Saunier, and another ball out of the park. Dreiling pulled this one past and just left of the bullpen in right for a 413-foot shot that had a 34.3-degree launch angle and a 108-MPH exit velo:

Ole Miss let Saunier get one more out before it hooked him, and its reliever got the final out, but the damage was done. Five runs on four hits, and this game seemed to be getting out of hand quickly.

Mississippi put up its only multi-run frame of the game in the T4, with Snead giving up a one-out single and a two-run home run after getting two Rebels out via swinging strikeout prior. So UT’s lead was briefly cut to 7-3, but the offense had Snead’s back and plated two runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning. Curley made up for his error earlier in the game with a one-out, solo blast — his eighth of the season in five fewer appearances than the Amick-Moore, 10-home run, team-leading duo. And then with two outs, Burke singled and Billy brought him all the way home with a run-scoring double to the wall in left-center.

Snead allowed two hits and a stolen base in the T6, but got the second and third outs of the half inning on strikeouts and didn’t allow a run.

UT blew the game open in the bottom half of the inning with six runs when the order cycled all the way through. Dreiling led off with a ground-ball out and finished the inning with a ground ball to the pitcher, but in between, Robin Villeneuve drew a walk, Hunter Ensley singled and Cannon Peebles took four straight balls for a walk to load the bases.

Curley singled and scored two off the base hit to right, then an out later he stole second which left room for a full-count Burke free pass which filled the bags with Tennessee runners again. Amick tied a bow on the contest with a grand slam that gave him a career-high five RBIs in the game. The broadcast said it was the first grand slam of Amick’s college tenure so far.

The blast went into the second row of the the party deck in left, which indicated it was likely in the 350-ish feet range, maybe? Tennessee’s system didn’t register an official distance, but it left the bat at 104 MPH and was another 35-plus-degree launch angle bomb.

This particular strikeout is from the fifth inning, but Snead got two Ks in the sixth and finished off Ole Miss in the top of the seventh with two ground ball outs, and a fly out to end the game, though he did surrender a solo home run to the next-to-last bater of he game.

As the video notes, Snead K’d a career-high six in just 4.2 innings. He gave up 6H and 3R but didn’t walk a batter or throw a wild pitch, tossed 70-ish percent of his 80 total pitches for strikes and had his velocity back up into the mid-to-high 90s.

UT is now 1-1 in SEC series and gets back to work Tuesday for the midweek game against Tennessee Tech, with the first pitch going out at 6 PM EST.

For the weekend series, Charlie Condon and the Georgia Bulldogs come to town. Condon leads the nation with a double-take inducing .513 batting average, while UGA has 63 home runs so far this year, which leads Tennessee by eight and ranks No. 1 in the NCAA.