Tennessee ekes out 7 hits but strands 7 runners, while Vanderbilt’s bullpen arms throw 5 innings of 3-hit, no-run ball in Vols’ 13-4 loss

Ugly game for Vol fans

Tennessee managed just seven hits, stranded seven runners and relied on a Reese Chapman home run for three of its four runs scored, while Vanderbilt teed off on the Volunteer pitching staff for 15 hits, four home runs and seven total extra-base hits as it put the Vols in the losers’ bracket with a 13-4 clobbering.

Both starting pitchers, Vandy’s Devin Futrell and Tennessee’s Nate Snead (who made his first start of the season) breezed through the first inning. Each guy got the opposing hitters down in order to start the game, and while Snead gave up a one-out single in the top of the second, he got a double play to end the inning without allowing a run. Snead threw 15 pitches in the first two frames.

Futrell, who was started in all but two of his appearances this season — one of which was against the Vols in Vandy’s 3-0 win in the recent, regular-season series when he threw 3 IP, allowed one hit, no walks, no runs and struck out five in a relief outing — surrendered a leadoff walk in the B2 and a consecutive run-scoring double off the bat of Hunter Ensley. This RBI was Ensley’s seventh in the last five games.

Futrell came back with a Kavares Tears’ strikeout, a Dean Curley ground-ball out and a Reese Chapman fly-ball out to leave Ensley stranded in scoring position, though the Vols took an early 1-0 lead.

Snead struck out the first batter of the T3 and didn’t show any warning signs of the impending calamity. Through the first two frames, he’d been utilizing his repertoire of pitches: he was locating his fastballs — a two-seamer at 94-95 MPH, the four-seam fastball at 97-98 MPH and dropping a couple gnarly breaking pitches off the table.

But after that leadoff K, Snead started taking lumps. The rest of the inning went as follows: a full-count walk, a double to put two men in scoring position, a run scored on a wild pitch, a ground-ball out, two-straight singles, one of which scored a run and finally a three-run home run to Commodore cleanup hitter Alan Espinal, who, like Futrell, was a critical piece of Vandy’s Sunday win to avoid the sweep when he hit his ninth home run of the year. Today’s longball put him in double digits for the year (10).

After looking possibly as best as he has all year in the first and second, he ended up looking like one of his worst performances of the season as he surrendered five runs on four hits before Vitello pulled him for Andrew Behnke, who put a tourniquet on the scoring and ended the inning with a four-pitch K.

In the B3, Blake Burke hit a two-out double, but Billy Amick flew out to center on the first pitch he saw to strand another Vol on base and in scoring position.

Behnke came out for the T4 and gave up a single in between a fly-ball out and a full-count strikeout. But then Behnke tossed a pitch several feet over Stark’s head for a wild pitch that allowed the runner on first to get into scoring position, and sure enough, the next batter singled to center to plate the run. Dylan Loy came in for Behnke after the RBI base hit, and Calvin Hewett, the man who’d singled earlier in the inning, stole second with ease and then took advantage of another UT wild pitch to get 90 feet from home. Loy finally got a ground-ball out to end the inning, but Vandy added another run off two hits and two wild pitches from the Vols’ staff.

The offense showed a pulse in the bottom half of the fourth, after Futrell got the first two outs. Tears singled, and Dean Curley walked before Reese Chapman unloaded on an 0-1 pitch for his sixth dinger of the season that plated three runs.

Vanderbilt’s 6-1 lead got cut to 6-4, and the Vols were back in the ball game.

Loy started the fifth but allowed a single and a double before Vitello went to Kirby Connell. Connell got a ground-ball out before another grounder advanced the runners and pushed one across home plate. Tennessee and Cal Stark caught Vandy trying to steal home with a great play from Stark to recognize the situation and get in position to tag the runner before the Vandy player could tag home.

Now down 7-4 and a new pitcher on the mound, the Vols had a chance to cut into the lead. Reliever Luke Guth walked Blake Burke and Dylan Dreiling, but Tennessee couldn’t manage a hit and stranded two more runners.

AJ Russell came in for the sixth and pitched for the first time since he threw 3 IP and 69 pitches against Ole Miss in late March. That was one outing after coming back from missing 3-4 weeks with arm soreness, and after the game against the Rebels, Vitello and Frank Anderson put him back on the shelf, due to more soreness in his arm.

He was rusty — as he hit the first batter he faced and served up a base hit to the next player. He recovered quick as he struck out the next hitter, but Hewett came up next, reached on fielder’s choice and subsequently stole second, again. With two outs and two RISP, Russell struck out his second guy of the half-inning to strand two runners and keep the Commodores from furthering the UT deficit.

Russell ended up throwing just the one half inning, with one hit allowed, two Ks against five batters. 15 of his 22 pitches went for strikes.

The Commodores changed pitchers again for the B6, and despite a one-out single, UT ended the frame with another runner stranded and another missed chance to trim Vandy’s lead.

Vanderbilt scored two more runs in the seventh, three runs in the eighth and one more in the ninth, while Tennessee had three hits and no runs from the fifth inning on.

Christian Moore and Billy Amick both finished 0-4, and Kavares Tears went 1-4 with three strikeouts. Burke was the lone bright spot, as he went 2-3 with a double and a walk. Near the end of the game, Vitello started treating it like a midweek game and threw as many arms as he could. He used eight pitchers in all, with Snead getting tagged for the loss (8-2 this year), while Connell and Russell were the only two arms used who didn’t allow a run or multiple runs. The pitchers combined for three wild pitches in the first four innings tonight after the entire complement of arms combined for 19 wild pitches in the regular season.

The Vols move to the losers bracket that’s filled with top-tier teams like Kentucky, Arkansas and now Tennessee. UT will face the loser of the Mississippi State/ Texas A&M game that kicks off sometime around 9:30 PM tonight. Per the NCAA’s bracket, Tennessee’s game will start approximately 30 minutes after the Kentucky/ Arkansas game that begins at 10:30 AM.

Thursday, May 23

Game 9: No. 3 Kentucky vs. No. 2 Arkansas | 10:30 a.m. | SEC Network

Game 10: No. 1 Tennessee vs. Loser Game 8 | 30 minutes after Game 9 | SEC Network

Game 11: No. 11 LSU vs. No. 10 South Carolina | 5:30 p.m. | SEC Network

Game 12: No. 8 Vanderbilt vs. Winner Game 8 | 30 minutes after Game 11 | SEC Network