Another weekend. Another sweep for the Kentucky Wildcats.
Nick Mingione’s team disposed of visiting Alabama with relative ease, beating the Crimson Tide by scores of 6-2, 7-0 and 10-1 to improve to a shocking 11-1 in the SEC. The Wildcats have also swept Georgia at home and Ole Miss on the road and took two of three at Missouri.
All four of Kentucky’s opponents are under .500 in the conference, but there has been nothing fluky about this team’s fast start. The Wildcats’ run differential through 12 SEC games is plus-71, and in league games, Kentucky’s offense ranks second in batting average (.316), slugging (.550) and runs scored (114) and its pitching staff leads the league in batting average against (.188) and is second in ERA (3.09).
A year ago, the Wildcats raced out to a 9-1 start in the league en route to a 16-14 finish.
Per Ben Beaty of the SEC, UK is the first team to start 9-1 in SEC play in back to back seasons in 32 years. https://t.co/dR5yfqXpPN
— Joe Healy (@JoeHealyD1) April 6, 2024
Around the horn
Arkansas continued its dominance on the mound, holding Ole Miss to nine runs in a weekend sweep over the Rebels in Fayetteville. The Razorbacks, 11-1 in the SEC and ranked No. 1 in the nation, have a league-low 2.83 ERA in conference games and have not allowed more than five runs in any of their SEC wins.
All-America left-hander Hagen Smith is 4-0 in four SEC starts with a 1.50 ERA, .169 batting average against and 43 strikeouts and seven walks in 24 innings.
We had some fireworks late Saturday night in Starkville. No punches were thrown, but the benches (sort of) cleared after Mississippi State catcher Johnny Long was a bit too aggressive after tagging out Dillon Carter for the third out in the top of the eighth inning.
Play resumed after a 40-minute review (yes, 40 minutes!) that resulted in 11 ejections, and Georgia evened the series with a 3-2 win thanks to a Clayton Chadwick home run in the top of the ninth.
There was speculation that all 11 players would be suspended for Sunday’s game, but after further review, the league limited the suspensions to five — three from Georgia (Fernando Gonzalez, Henry Hunter and Daniel Padysak) and two from Mississippi State (Logan Kohler and Long). Because two of the three Georgia players are catchers, the Bulldogs were allowed to stagger the suspensions. Hunter served his suspension on Sunday and Gonzales will serve his for Tuesday’s game against Kennesaw State.
ICYMI: Last night a play at the plate between Georgia and Mississippi State resulted in players entering the field of play which triggered a 40-minute review and 11 overall ejections.
Those 11 players have not all been named but are expected to miss Sunday’s rubber game as well. pic.twitter.com/fr6SgoNb06
— SEC Baseball (@SECbaseball) April 7, 2024
Mississippi State won the series with a wild 9-8 win on Sunday afternoon.
Georgia slugger Charlie Condon was limited to only three hits in 12 at-bats — though one of his hits was his nation-leading 20th home run — and is now hitting only .458.
West Virginia All-American JJ Wetherholt was back in action over the weekend after missing 24 games with a hamstring injury. Serving as the Mountaineers’ designated hitter, Wetherholt went a combined 5 for 13 as WVU swept three games from Kansas.
The Mountaineers are tied with Oklahoma atop the Big 12 standings with an 8-4 record in league play.
What is going on in Fort Worth? TCU, which crashed the top five when it opened the season with 13 consecutive wins, got swept at Cincinnati over the weekend to drop to 20-11 overall and a stunning 5-10 in the Big 12.
After losing 4-2 on Friday and 6-2 on Saturday, the Frogs hardly put up a fight on Sunday, getting run-ruled in a disheartening 13-2 loss in seven innings. TCU has scored six runs or fewer in 13 of its 15 conference games.
It’s safe to say that Nick Kurtz’s slump is over. Wake Forest’s All-America first baseman hit three home runs in the Demon Deacons’ 10-4 win at Virginia Tech on Sunday and now has eight homers in the past five games.
Kurtz got off to a slow start to his junior season and missed six games with a shoulder injury but now looks like the hitter who is projected to be picked in the top of the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft. He is hitting .298 with 11 home runs and an OPS of 1.238.
It was a big bounce-back weekend for Wake Forest, which was swept at home last weekend by North Carolina. The Deacs swept Virginia Tech — which had been 10-2 in the ACC — and are now 7-8 in league play with a trip to Boston College looming next weekend.
Hey @ACCBaseball,
It’s us again. Please find attached our nomination for Player of the Week.
Peace and blessings,
Wake Baseball https://t.co/4q38LHRLKK pic.twitter.com/FPb677DvpO— Wake Forest Baseball (@WakeBaseball) April 7, 2024
It was another productive weekend for Oregon State All-American Travis Bazzana. The junior second baseman went 5 for 12 with five runs scored and three RBIs as the Beavers swept Arizona State in Corvallis.
In Friday’s 13-8 win, Bazzana hits his sixth leadoff home run of the season and his 17th overall. It was his 34th career home run, tying him with Joe Gerber and Andy Jarvis for first all-time at Oregon State.
Bazzana is second nationally in batting average (.472), slugging (1.056) and OPS (1.670).
One week after scoring a total of two runs and collecting only 10 hits in a weekend sweep at Vanderbilt, Missouri recorded its first-ever sweep over the Florida Gators. The Tigers entered the weekend with a 1-8 record in the SEC due in large part to an offense that was hitting an anemic .144 in league games. They won low-scoring games on Friday (2-1 in 11 innings) and Saturday (4-3) before erupting for 14 hits in Sunday’s thrilling 11-10 victory in which Missouri blew an early 7-1 lead and then rallied for three runs in the bottom the ninth to walk off the Gators on Jeric Curtis’ two-out single to center field.
Florida’s two-way star Jac Caglianone went 2 for 4 with a two-run home run on Sunday but had his worst performance of the season on the mound — allowing six earned runs in only 1 ⅓ innings. The Gators are 17-14 and 6-6 in the SEC.
Surging Louisiana, winner of 15 in a row, has opened up a three-game lead in the highly competitive Sun Belt. The Ragin’ Cajuns, who swept ULM over the weekend, are 11-1 in the league, with both Southern Miss and Georgia Southern sitting at 8-4.
Louisiana, which entered the D1 Baseball top 25 this week at No. 19, and Coastal Carolina (No. 20) are the only two Sun Belt teams ranked. Coastal hosts the Ragin’ Cajuns in two weeks.
Freshman Christian Lim has been a bright spot in what has otherwise been a season to forget for Stanford.
Lim, a freshman from Nashville, is 3-2 with a 2.89 ERA and 54 strikeouts and 12 walks in 43 ⅔ innings. In Saturday’s 3-1 win over Washington State, Lim allowed only two hits and one earned run in a season-high eight innings.
Stanford is 13-16 overall and 6-6 in the Pac-12.
Iowa and Indiana, considered by most to be the two best teams in the Big Ten heading into the season, have pretty much played their way out of the at-large discussion for a Regional bid. Iowa is 14-13 overall and 5-4 in the league after losing two out of three at Purdue over the weekend. Indiana, meanwhile, is 18-15 and 3-3 following a series win at Maryland.
Nebraska, at 5-1, is percentage points ahead of Illinois (7-2) atop the league standings. The Cornhuskers, with an RPI of 17, figure to be the league’s best bet to receive an at-large bid should they not win the Big Ten Tournament — though that RPI figures to drop quite a bit as they get deeper into league play.
And finally
• LSU is 3-9 in the SEC after losing two of three to Vanderbilt in Baton Rouge. The Tigers have been run-ruled three times in league games, each in the final game of the series.
• There are two teams nationally with a perfect league record with at least six conference games played — Bowling Green (12-0 in the MAC) and Rider (9-0 in the MAAC).
• One year after its surprise run to the College World Series — which began as a No. 4 seed in the Stillwater Regional — Oral Roberts is fighting to stay out of last place in the six-team Summit League. The Golden Eagles are 12-17-1 overall and 4-7-1 in the league.
• Virginia freshman Henry Ford blasted three home runs in Thursday’s 14-11 win over North Carolina in Charlottesville. Ford, a Charlottesville native who played high school baseball at the Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tenn., is hitting .377 with 10 home runs and 43 RBIs.
• Louisville swept a three-game set from NC State to improve to 20-11 overall and 6-6 in the ACC. With an RPI of 90, the Cardinals will need to stack some more series wins before they can be considered a serious at-large candidate.
• Western Kentucky took two of three from then-No. 8 Dallas Baptist in Bowling Green. The Hilltoppers held DBU to a total of seven runs in the three games.
• Tennessee bounced back from a loss to Auburn on Friday night to bludgeon the Tigers with 31 runs (thanks to 12 home runs) in the next two games. On Saturday, junior Blake Burke moved into first place on the Vols’ all-time home run list with the 41st bomb in his three-year career.
• Duke stayed within striking distance of first place in the ACC Coastal by sweeping Miami with three one-run wins, including two walk-offs. The Blue Devils are 9-6 in league play, tied for third with Virginia and two games behind the Tar Heels. Virginia Tech is in second at 10-5.
• East Carolina took two of three at FAU in an important series in the American Athletic Conference. The Pirates are 6-3 in the league, one game behind UTSA. FAU is 5-4.
• UC Irvine maintained its spot atop the Big West standings by winning a series over UCSB. The Anteaters are 24-4 overall and 10-2 in the Big West.
(Photo courtesy of Kentucky Athletics)
