Well, that was ugly.
The Tennessee Volunteers went up to Lexington this weekend with plenty of momentum after taking two out of three games from a ranked Alabama team last weekend.
Unfortunately, everything went to pot on Friday night for Tennessee and its reordered pitching rotation. After a stretch of strong performances, Tegan Kuhns drew the start for the opener, and it was a crash back to earth for the sophomore righty. While he struck out seven, he was tagged for six runs on 10 hits across six innings
in a 9-2 loss to Kentucky. The crushing blow was a three-run homer to put UK up 6-0 in the fifth. Henry Ford clubbed a two-run homer in the eighth to avoid the shutout.
On Saturday, things were even uglier, somehow. Evan Blanco allowed six earned runs across five innings, and the damage came by way of the long ball. Three Kentucky home runs in the third and fourth innings gave the Wildcats control of the game at 4-0. After drawing to within 4-2 after a Blaine Brown solo home run in the sixth, the bullpen brought a gas can to the mound in the bottom of the next two innings, allowing seven runs between three pitchers to blow it open at 11-2 after seven. UK notched one more in the bottom of the eighth to walk it off in run rule fashion.
Tennessee has the chance to avoid the sweep tomorrow, but without question, this was as disappointing of a performance as one could expect from this team, which continues to undulate between good and bad from weekend to weekend.
Just not good enough.
