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Wildcats on a Roll: Kentucky Sweeps SEC Series and Continues Historic Start

One more weekend. Once again, the Kentucky Wildcats have won.

With easy ease, Nick Mingione’s squad defeated Alabama, which was in town, winning 6-2, 7-0, and 10-1 to move up to an astounding 11-1 in the SEC. In addition, the Wildcats have won two of three games against Missouri and swept both Georgia and Ole Miss away from home.

Although Kentucky’s four league opponents are all below.500, this team’s rapid rise has not been accidental. Through 12 SEC games, the Wildcats have a plus-71 run differential. In league play, Kentucky’s pitching staff leads the league in both ERA (3.09) and batting average against (.188), while the team’s offense is second in batting average (.316), slugging (.550), and runs scored (114).

The Wildcats finished 16–14 in the previous year after storming to a 9–1 league start.

Around the horn

During a weekend sweep over Ole Miss in Fayetteville, Arkansas maintained its dominant pitching performance, allowing the Rebels to score just nine runs. In conference games, the Razorbacks, who are 11-1 in the SEC and No. 1 in the country, have a league-low 2.83 ERA and have not let up more than five runs in any of their SEC victories.

Hagen Smith, an All-America left-hander, with a 1.50 ERA, a.169 batting average against, forty-three strikeouts, and seven walks in twenty-four innings pitched in four SEC starts.

In Starkville, we had some fireworks late on Saturday night. The benches (kind of) cleared when Mississippi State catcher Johnny Long got a little too rough after tagging out Dillon Carter for the third out in the top of the eighth inning, but no punches were exchanged.

After a 40-minute review (yes, 40 minutes!) that saw 11 ejections, play resumed, and a Clayton Chadwick home run in the top of the ninth inning helped Georgia win 3-2 to square the series.

There were rumors that all 11 players would be suspended for Sunday’s game, but following additional investigation, the conference decided to only sanction five players: two from Mississippi State (Logan Kohler and Long) and three from Georgia (Fernando Gonzalez, Henry Hunter, and Daniel Padysak). The Bulldogs were permitted to stagger the punishments since two of the three Georgia players are catchers. Gonzales will serve his suspension for Tuesday’s matchup against Kennesaw State, while Hunter served his on Sunday.

The series was won by Mississippi State on Sunday afternoon with a thrilling 9-8 victory.

Charlie Condon, the slugger for Georgia, was only able to muster three hits in 12 at-bats, one of which was his 20th home run, which led the country, and is currently hitting just.458.

All-American from West Virginia Over the weekend, JJ Wetherholt returned to duty following a 24-game absence due to a hamstring injury. As the designated hitter for the Mountaineers, Wetherholt went a total 5 for 13 in three games against Kansas.

With an 8-4 league record, the Mountaineers are tied for first place in the Big 12 rankings with Oklahoma.

How is Fort Worth faring? TCU, which began the season with 13 straight victories and crashed the top five, was swept at Cincinnati over the weekend, dropping to 20-11 overall and an astonishing 5-10 in the Big 12.

The Frogs were run-ruled in a depressing 13-2 loss in seven innings on Sunday, putting up little of a fight after falling 4-2 on Friday and 6-2 on Saturday. Of its 15 conference games, TCU has only managed six runs or less in 13 of them.

We may safely conclude that Nick Kurtz’s bad luck has ended. The All-America first baseman for Wake Forest smashed three home runs in Sunday’s 10-4 victory over Virginia Tech, giving him eight for the previous five games.

After missing six games due to a shoulder injury and having a sluggish start to his junior season, Kurtz now appears to be the batter who will be selected in the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft. With 11 home runs and an OPS of 1.238, he is hitting.298.

For Wake Forest, which was soundly defeated by North Carolina at home the previous weekend, it was a significant comeback weekend. With a trip to Boston College coming up the next weekend, the Deacs, who had been 10-2 in the ACC, defeated Virginia Tech to go to 7-8 in league play.

Travis Bazzana, an all-American at Oregon State, had another successful weekend. The Beavers swept Arizona State in Corvallis, with the junior second baseman going 5 for 12 with three RBIs and five runs scored.

Bazzana launches his sixth season leadoff home shot and his 17th career in Friday’s 13–8 victory. With his 34th career home run, he tied Andy Jarvis and Joe Gerber for the most at Oregon State ever.

In terms of batting average (.472), slugging (1.056), and OPS (1.670), Bazzana is ranked second in the country.

A week following their weekend sweep at Vanderbilt, where they managed just 10 hits and two runs overall, Missouri won their first-ever sweep of the Florida Gators. The Tigers’ offense, which was only averaging.144 in conference games, was a major factor in their 1-8 SEC record going into the weekend. Before exploding for 14 hits in Sunday’s thrilling 11-10 victory, where Missouri blew an early 7-1 lead before rallying for three runs in the bottom of the ninth to walk off the Gators on Jeric Curtis’ two-out single to center field, they won low-scoring games on Friday (2-1 in 11 innings) and Saturday (4-3).

Jac Caglianone, a two-way standout for Florida, went 2 for 4 on Sunday, including a two-run home run. However, he had the worst outing of the season on the pitching, giving up six earned runs in just 1 ⅓ innings. The Gators are 6-6 in the SEC and 17-14 overall.

Surging Louisiana, the reigning 15-game winner, has taken a three-game lead in the fiercely contested Sun Belt. After sweeping ULM over the weekend, the Ragin’ Cajuns lead the conference at 11-1, followed by 8-4 scores from Georgia Southern and Southern Miss.

The only two Sun Belt teams ranked are Louisiana, which moved up to No. 19 in the D1 Baseball top 25 this week, and Coastal Carolina, which is ranked No. 20. In two weeks, Coastal will host the Ragin’ Cajuns.

For Stanford, this season has been one to forget, but freshman Christian Lim has been a bright spot.

Lim is a Nashville native who is 3-2 in 43 ⅔ innings with a 2.89 ERA, 54 strikeouts, and 12 walks. Lim pitched a season-high eight innings, giving up just two hits and one earned run in Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Washington State.

Stanford is 13-16 overall and 6-6 in the Pac-12.

Despite being viewed as the top two Big Ten teams going into the season, Iowa and Indiana have essentially been eliminated from the general conversation regarding a Regional bid. Iowa lost two of its three games at Purdue over the weekend, dropping to 14-13 overall and 5-4 in the league. In contrast, Indiana is now 18-15 and 3-3 after defeating Maryland in the series.

In the conference standings, Nebraska (5-1) leads Illinois (7-2) by percentage points. If they do not win the Big Ten Tournament, the Cornhuskers, with an RPI of 17, seem to be the league’s best chance to gain an at-large bid; but, as the season progresses, that RPI should decline significantly.

And finally

• Following two consecutive losses to Vanderbilt in Baton Rouge, LSU is at 3-9 in the SEC. In three league games, the Tigers have been completely outclassed, all of which occurred in the series finale.

With at least six conference games played, only two teams in the country own a perfect league record: Bowling Green (12-0 in the MAC) and Rider (9-0 in the MAAC).

• Oral Roberts is battling to avoid finishing last in the six-team Summit League, a year after its unexpected run to the College World Series, which started as a No. 4 seed in the Stillwater Regional. The Golden Eagles are 4-7-1 in the league and 12-17-1 overall.

• Virginia defeated North Carolina 14–11 in Charlottesville on Thursday night thanks to three home runs from rookie Henry Ford. Ford, a native of Charlottesville who attended Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Baylor School for his high school baseball, is now hitting.377 with 10 home runs and 43 RBIs.

• Louisville defeated NC State in three straight games to raise their record to 20-11 overall and 6-6 in the ACC. The Cardinals, who currently have an RPI of 90, will need to win more series before they can be taken seriously as an at-large contender.

• In Bowling Green, Western Kentucky defeated then-No. 8 Dallas Baptist two out of three times. Over the course of the three games, DBU was limited to seven runs by the Hilltoppers.

• After falling short against Auburn on Friday night, Tennessee stormed back to defeat the Tigers with 31 runs in the next two games, 12 of which came from home homers. With his 41st home run of the three-year career, junior Blake Burke took the lead on the Vols’ all-time home run chart on Saturday.

• Duke swept Miami with three one-run victories, including two walk-offs, to maintain a one-run lead in the ACC Coastal. With a 9-6 record in league play, the Blue Devils sit two games behind the Tar Heels and tied for third place with Virginia. Second place goes to Virginia Tech (10-5).

• In a crucial American Athletic Conference matchup, East Carolina won two of three against FAU. The Pirates trail UTSA by one game in the conference standings at 6-3. FAU has a 5-4 record.

• UC Irvine defeated UCSB in a series to keep its lead in the Big West rankings. The Anteaters are 10-2 in the Big West and 24-4 overall.

(Photo courtesy of Kentucky Athletics)

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